It just occurred to me that it has been several months since Alcor lost their appeal in the Larry Johnson/Vanguard Publishing case. Did they publish that bit of news on their news blog? I looked, briefly, but saw no mention of it. To be honest, I didn't look very hard...their "news" is just too much absurd nonsense, to me. I got through three short paragraphs of a story about the delivery of some dewars, which Alcor didn't have the equipment to unload, and the driver slept in his truck...REALLY???!!! No real news...just another exercise in literary "padding" of an extremely boring event, from the great minds who say they can preserve your brain and wake you up in the future. Oh...and last I checked, they wanted about a quarter of a million dollars to do it. They would appreciate being the primary beneficiary of your will, trust, insurance policy, annuity, etc., as well. Back to the court case...
The bottom line is: Essentially, the court found Alcor's case had no merit.
"As to its contention that it needs further discovery, plaintiff failed to demonstrate that facts essential to justify opposition to defendants' motions might exist but could not then be stated (see CPLR 3212[f]). Moreover, the record shows that plaintiff had, and failed to take advantage of, a reasonable opportunity to pursue the disclosure it now seeks.
The cause of action for aiding and abetting a breach of employment contract and certain provisions of a default judgment was correctly dismissed (see Hirschfeld v Daily News, 269 [*2]AD2d 248, 249 [1st Dept 2000]).
We have considered plaintiff's remaining arguments and find them unavailing."
http://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/appellate-division-first-department/2016/159-113938-09.html
Congrats to Vanguard Publishing and their attorneys.
Showing posts with label Alcor vs. Johnson NY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alcor vs. Johnson NY. Show all posts
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Alcor Neglects to Mention Court Loss on their News Blog
Is anyone surprised Alcor's News Blog has yet to mention that the Supreme Court of the State of New York ruled against them, three weeks ago? I'm not. The judge threw out Alcor's case, when he ruled on a summary judgment in favor of Vanguard Publishing and Scott Baldyga. http://www.law360.com/articles/534039/cryolab-hosting-ted-williams-remains-loses-defamation-suit
Do you know what a "summary judgment" indicates? I think it means the judge determined Alcor didn't have a case worth trying. Personally, I think anyone of reasonable intelligence, who had read the court documents, would understand the decision and agree; it was ridiculous.
Alcor spent five years, (and a tremendous amount of money, I'm sure), fighting a battle they did not deserve to win. Personally, I had hoped this case would actually make it to trial, for all the world to get a close look at some of Alcor's activities and personnel, but at least the door has been left open for future whistle-blowers and their publishers, (in regard to all matters of public interest, not just cryonics).
Congrats Vanguard and Baldyga!!
Do you know what a "summary judgment" indicates? I think it means the judge determined Alcor didn't have a case worth trying. Personally, I think anyone of reasonable intelligence, who had read the court documents, would understand the decision and agree; it was ridiculous.
Alcor spent five years, (and a tremendous amount of money, I'm sure), fighting a battle they did not deserve to win. Personally, I had hoped this case would actually make it to trial, for all the world to get a close look at some of Alcor's activities and personnel, but at least the door has been left open for future whistle-blowers and their publishers, (in regard to all matters of public interest, not just cryonics).
Congrats Vanguard and Baldyga!!
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Dr. Wowk's Questionable Defense of Alcor
From my 12/04/2010 post on lesswrong.com: “What happened when Larry Johnson brought up the issue of OSHA violations, at Alcor? Did his superiors ask him to remedy the situation, or did they ask him to shred documents and delete computer files, related to his complaints?”
Brian Wowk’s response, (which really wasn't a valid response, at all, if you ask me): “Johnson's claims are presently subject to an active defamation lawsuit. Numerous medical professionals have done work with Alcor at various times, including nurses, clinical perfusionists, a neurosurgeon, two doctors who served as CEOs, and two full-time paramedics hired after Johnson. None of them behaved as Johnson did.”
Personally, I am tired of people trying to pretend Alcor’s accusations of defamation prove Larry Johnson to be a liar, and I’m hoping the Alcor vs. Johnson et. al. civil suit makes it to a jury trial, so we can all know the truth about the many accusations between Alcor and Mr. Johnson, (in both directions).
What makes Dr. Wowk’s comments more than a little offensive, to me, is the fact that he knows Charles Platt’s voice, as well as I do, (probably better). Assuming Dr. Wowk listened to the audiotapes, previously published on frozenbook.com, Dr. Wowk and I both know Mr. Johnson has recordings of a conversation he had with Charles Platt, (COO of Alcor, at the time), and they seem to be discussing Mr. Platt’s instructions, to destroy the evidence of Mr. Johnson’s complaints about OSHA violations. As I recall, Mr. Platt expressed concern that someone from The National Enquirer might be hiding in the bushes, when they were pouring biohazardous materials down the sewer drain.
Dr. Wowk claims none of the medical professionals, who have been associated with Alcor, since that time, have “behaved as Johnson did.” As far as I know, there is only one paramedic on Alcor’s staff, and I think it’s safe to assume it is the rest of the Alcor staff, whose behaviors have changed, since Larry Johnson published evidence of some very questionable activities at their facility. For example, I kind of doubt they still go around, bragging about having been involved in an alleged illegal euthanasia.
I believe Dr. Wowk has heard the tapes, and I believe he knows certain stories, (whether true, or not), were told to Larry Johnson, by Alcor staff members. I would ask Dr. Wowk, the same question I have asked others, intent on discrediting Mr. Johnson: "If you want to call someone a liar, why don't you point your finger at the Alcor staff members, on those tapes?"
Again, I am hoping for a jury to iron this all out, in a New York court of law. It appears the judge has recently put the trial off, until December 2011, with 30 – 90 day deadlines on things like discovery requests and depositions.
(On a tangent...Was Dr. Wowk the "Brian," at the Ted Williams case? If I had witnessed that fiasco, I would have gone straight to the authorities. It was a mess...a mockery of both modern medicine AND science.)
Brian Wowk’s response, (which really wasn't a valid response, at all, if you ask me): “Johnson's claims are presently subject to an active defamation lawsuit. Numerous medical professionals have done work with Alcor at various times, including nurses, clinical perfusionists, a neurosurgeon, two doctors who served as CEOs, and two full-time paramedics hired after Johnson. None of them behaved as Johnson did.”
Personally, I am tired of people trying to pretend Alcor’s accusations of defamation prove Larry Johnson to be a liar, and I’m hoping the Alcor vs. Johnson et. al. civil suit makes it to a jury trial, so we can all know the truth about the many accusations between Alcor and Mr. Johnson, (in both directions).
What makes Dr. Wowk’s comments more than a little offensive, to me, is the fact that he knows Charles Platt’s voice, as well as I do, (probably better). Assuming Dr. Wowk listened to the audiotapes, previously published on frozenbook.com, Dr. Wowk and I both know Mr. Johnson has recordings of a conversation he had with Charles Platt, (COO of Alcor, at the time), and they seem to be discussing Mr. Platt’s instructions, to destroy the evidence of Mr. Johnson’s complaints about OSHA violations. As I recall, Mr. Platt expressed concern that someone from The National Enquirer might be hiding in the bushes, when they were pouring biohazardous materials down the sewer drain.
Dr. Wowk claims none of the medical professionals, who have been associated with Alcor, since that time, have “behaved as Johnson did.” As far as I know, there is only one paramedic on Alcor’s staff, and I think it’s safe to assume it is the rest of the Alcor staff, whose behaviors have changed, since Larry Johnson published evidence of some very questionable activities at their facility. For example, I kind of doubt they still go around, bragging about having been involved in an alleged illegal euthanasia.
I believe Dr. Wowk has heard the tapes, and I believe he knows certain stories, (whether true, or not), were told to Larry Johnson, by Alcor staff members. I would ask Dr. Wowk, the same question I have asked others, intent on discrediting Mr. Johnson: "If you want to call someone a liar, why don't you point your finger at the Alcor staff members, on those tapes?"
Again, I am hoping for a jury to iron this all out, in a New York court of law. It appears the judge has recently put the trial off, until December 2011, with 30 – 90 day deadlines on things like discovery requests and depositions.
(On a tangent...Was Dr. Wowk the "Brian," at the Ted Williams case? If I had witnessed that fiasco, I would have gone straight to the authorities. It was a mess...a mockery of both modern medicine AND science.)
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Cryonics Cranks and Crackpots
I'm not really surprised when people I consider to be intelligent continue to hold Michael "Mike Darwin" Federowicz up as some sort of cryonics icon, but I am dismayed. He puts on a good show, spewing out medical terminology like there's no tomorrow, but any valid information he spews forth almost always comes from the works of others, in conventional medicine. The cryonics audience seems to frequently overlook the fact that someone who regurgitates known scientific information, is not responsible for establishing it, and most often cannot be relied upon to build on it! On top of that, his audience is mostly comprised of laymen, (people unfamiliar with perfusion and hypothermic procedures), who will not recognize his mistakes. Federowicz is a quack, a crank, a liar, and perhaps much worse than that; if you ask me, people like him are the primary reason most REAL scientists and medical professionals are reluctant to be associated with cryonics.
Federowicz recently wrote:
"It is certainly true that some cryopatients unequivocally benefit from aggressive reperfusion with ventilation as evidenced by return of good tissue perfusion and even the return of neocortical electrical activity (and if un-medicated, return of consciousness)."
http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/mike-darwin-on-anoxic-cps/
Is that true? Did some of the persons undergoing cryopreservation efforts exhibit "the return of neocortical electrical activity and if un-medicated, return of consciousness"??? If they did experience a "return of consciousness," were they given an injection to make them "legally" (or, perhaps, "illegally") dead, again? (There have been public accusations of the illegal euthanization of people undergoing cryonics procedures, and some of the Johnson tapes do seem to be of Alcor personnel discussing more than one such incident.)
The truth is, Federowicz cannot prove "...cryopatients unequivocally benefit from aggressive reperfusion with ventilation..." It's easy for Federowicz and his peers to make such grandiose claims, because their human experiments have no outcomes. They perform their little poorly-designed, poorly-executed experiments; drop the subjects in liquid nitrogen vapor; and then there's never any outcomes by which people can judge the efficacy of their procedures.
In the same article, Federowicz goes on to write:
"What is really needed is systematic research in truly relevant animal models (i.e., following cardiac arrest from sepsis, hypovolemia in the setting of systemic inflammation, prolonged hypoxia, and so on) to determine if anoxic (closed chest) CPS can be made workable or even superior to CPS with ventilation."
Mr. Federowicz would probably like nothing more than to have someone fund more cryonics animal experiments, where an unqualified person, such as himself, could play doctor, subjecting even more than the >1,000 dogs he claims to have already experimented on, to painful, mostly pointless and unproductive, experimentation.
In 30 - 40 years of "cryonics research," what have Mr. Federowicz and his peers contributed to hypothermic medicine? What have they contributed to cryonics, other than a bad reputation? What, exactly, have cryonics dog experiments accomplished? Were Federowicz' and/or Steve Harris' dog experiments reliable, and have they been of any value, whatsoever, to the advancement of hypothermic medicine?
I can't imagine anyone being under the impression that Federowicz should be someone to advise on developing "systematic research." Whom have Federowicz and his peers impressed, other than cryonicists, (an audience comprised mostly of young laypersons, who are easily taken in by some crank, like Federowicz, spewing forth medical terminology)? There is a plethora of ongoing research experiments being carried out by reputable scientists and clinicians, exploring the topics of perfusion and hypothermic medicine, and the cryonics community continues to look for advice from the likes of Federowicz?
Michael "Mike Darwin" Federowicz may be an "expert" in the eyes of some cryonicists, but I think that's mostly due to the relative ignorance of his audience, his shameless self-promotion and that of his cryonics peers. "Cryonics experts," for the most part, are a small self-serving group, who specialize in "smoke and mirrors."
People should have recognized Federowicz for what he is, by now. Amongst other things, he is someone who would blatantly lie about being a board-eligible perfusionist, when he most certainly knows he never met the requirments to make such a claim. A hospice nurse claims Federowicz also lied to him about being a nurse, and Federowicz has referred to himself as a "surgeon," in numerous cryonics case reports. I believe this constitutes a felony, in some states, and is possibly a violation of federal law. Federowicz has never been a board-eligible perfusionist, or a nurse, and he is not a physician, at all, much less a surgeon. His only formal medical training, as far as I know, is as a dialysis technician. If the cryonics organizations want to rely on self-proclaimed experts and laymen "doing the best they can," let them label those persons as such.
Federowicz recently wrote:
"It is certainly true that some cryopatients unequivocally benefit from aggressive reperfusion with ventilation as evidenced by return of good tissue perfusion and even the return of neocortical electrical activity (and if un-medicated, return of consciousness)."
http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/mike-darwin-on-anoxic-cps/
Is that true? Did some of the persons undergoing cryopreservation efforts exhibit "the return of neocortical electrical activity and if un-medicated, return of consciousness"??? If they did experience a "return of consciousness," were they given an injection to make them "legally" (or, perhaps, "illegally") dead, again? (There have been public accusations of the illegal euthanization of people undergoing cryonics procedures, and some of the Johnson tapes do seem to be of Alcor personnel discussing more than one such incident.)
The truth is, Federowicz cannot prove "...cryopatients unequivocally benefit from aggressive reperfusion with ventilation..." It's easy for Federowicz and his peers to make such grandiose claims, because their human experiments have no outcomes. They perform their little poorly-designed, poorly-executed experiments; drop the subjects in liquid nitrogen vapor; and then there's never any outcomes by which people can judge the efficacy of their procedures.
In the same article, Federowicz goes on to write:
"What is really needed is systematic research in truly relevant animal models (i.e., following cardiac arrest from sepsis, hypovolemia in the setting of systemic inflammation, prolonged hypoxia, and so on) to determine if anoxic (closed chest) CPS can be made workable or even superior to CPS with ventilation."
Mr. Federowicz would probably like nothing more than to have someone fund more cryonics animal experiments, where an unqualified person, such as himself, could play doctor, subjecting even more than the >1,000 dogs he claims to have already experimented on, to painful, mostly pointless and unproductive, experimentation.
In 30 - 40 years of "cryonics research," what have Mr. Federowicz and his peers contributed to hypothermic medicine? What have they contributed to cryonics, other than a bad reputation? What, exactly, have cryonics dog experiments accomplished? Were Federowicz' and/or Steve Harris' dog experiments reliable, and have they been of any value, whatsoever, to the advancement of hypothermic medicine?
I can't imagine anyone being under the impression that Federowicz should be someone to advise on developing "systematic research." Whom have Federowicz and his peers impressed, other than cryonicists, (an audience comprised mostly of young laypersons, who are easily taken in by some crank, like Federowicz, spewing forth medical terminology)? There is a plethora of ongoing research experiments being carried out by reputable scientists and clinicians, exploring the topics of perfusion and hypothermic medicine, and the cryonics community continues to look for advice from the likes of Federowicz?
Michael "Mike Darwin" Federowicz may be an "expert" in the eyes of some cryonicists, but I think that's mostly due to the relative ignorance of his audience, his shameless self-promotion and that of his cryonics peers. "Cryonics experts," for the most part, are a small self-serving group, who specialize in "smoke and mirrors."
People should have recognized Federowicz for what he is, by now. Amongst other things, he is someone who would blatantly lie about being a board-eligible perfusionist, when he most certainly knows he never met the requirments to make such a claim. A hospice nurse claims Federowicz also lied to him about being a nurse, and Federowicz has referred to himself as a "surgeon," in numerous cryonics case reports. I believe this constitutes a felony, in some states, and is possibly a violation of federal law. Federowicz has never been a board-eligible perfusionist, or a nurse, and he is not a physician, at all, much less a surgeon. His only formal medical training, as far as I know, is as a dialysis technician. If the cryonics organizations want to rely on self-proclaimed experts and laymen "doing the best they can," let them label those persons as such.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Alcor's Spin Doctors
Alcor recently issued a public statement, regarding the deposition of Larry Johnson. In response, an anonymous person on the Cold Filter forum claimed Mr. Johnson is "digging himself in deeper," because he asserted his Fifth Amendment rights, during the deposition. Is he? Hopefully, Mr. Johnson was following an attorney's advice, when he invoked the Fifth, (during a deposition, not a court hearing). The same person, writes "so much for the huge embarrassment, speculated by some here in the past, to Alcor, if these matters were aired in court." I still think Alcor will suffer a HUGE, perhaps devastating, embarrassment, if "these matters," (the conversations on those tapes), are aired in a court of law, (which they have not been).
I'm perplexed as to why Alcor continues to make public statements about this matter, before the NY case is over, and even more amazed they published questions and answers from the recent deposition. If I was Johnson's attorney, (I'm not an attorney, at all), I would respond by deposing the people who are alleged to be speaking on the tapes Johnson has, and publish their answers. Just think of it...
Question to Alcor Staff Member X: "Mr. X, is that your voice saying to Larry Johnson, "He killed her?"" And if the answer is "Yes,"... "To whom were you referring to, in regard to both the alleged murderer and the alleged victim?"
I could come up with thousands of embarrassing questions, for Alcor staff members, (both past and present), but I'm not interested in playing that game. Johnson et. al.'s attorneys should keep in mind that at least one person who allegedly discussed being involved in at least one illegal euthanasia still works at Alcor. If those tapes are legitimate, (and I, personally, believe they are), Alcor has had staff members who were either actually present when a certain cryonics superstar is said to have performed an illegal euthanasia, or who are psychologically-disturbed individuals who want to pretend they were involved in an illegal euthanasia.
Alcor gloats, "During deposition, Larry Johnson invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 300 times to avoid incriminating himself."
I'm just curious...Who, in that room, did not figure out that Mr. Johnson was not going to answer any questions, after the first 40, or 50? Seriously. Were Alcor's attorneys in control of the length of the deposition? How much do they get paid per hour? How much did Mr. Johnson have to pay his attorney, per hour? Is the goal of this legal battle to get to the truth, or to see who runs out of money, first? (And, for those of you who still think Johnson did this for the money, the court document reports that "over 33,000 copies of the book have been distributed." The cost of his legal battles probably exceeded any money he made, from the book, in the first few months!)
I think Alcor is hoping people will overlook the fact that Alcor cannot really "win" anything, in a hearing regarding Johnson et. al.'s "Motions to Dismiss," other than the right to proceed to trial with their claims. On the other hand, Johnson et. al. did succeed in having some of Alcor's claims thrown out of court.
My favorite part of the Alcor news brief was:
"On October 29, 2010, the New York court denied a motion to dismiss filed by Mr. Johnson. The court would only dismiss for now the "conversion" claim against Mr. Johnson for technical reasons, leaving claims for defamation and other causes of action intact."
http://www.alcor.org/press/response.html
The "technical reason" was that Alcor's allegations were "insufficient to state a claim for conversion as a matter of law," so their claim was dismissed.
Here are some highlights from the recent NY ruling, on Johnson et. al.'s "Motions to Dismiss:"
"In its opposition, Alcor appears to have abandoned its breach of contract claim with respect to the NDA."
"Accordingly, as a matter of law, Alcor has no ground to assert a breach of contract claim based on the Employee Handbook."
The judge leaves Alcor's claims for "Breach of Agreements and Judgment" in regard to the handwritten agreement, and their claim for "Breach of Fiduciary Duty" intact. (That doesn't mean Alcor "wins," only that those claims may proceed to trial.)
"Accordingly, Alcor fails to state a tortious interference with contract against Baldyga."
"According, Alcor's claim for aiding and abetting misappropriation of trade secrets must be dismissed."
The court did not rule on Alcor's status, as a public figure, something that may determine the outcome of a lot of the claims against Johnson et. al.
(From Alcor's statement: "Claims for defamation and other causes of action, including aiding and abetting a breach of fiduciary duty, against Vanguard Press and Scott Baldyga will also continue forward in New York.")
I have been busy with other things, and may not have even noticed the court documents, if not for Alcor's public statement. If Alcor is going to publish self-serving statements, appearing to be "cherry-picking" favorable court decisions, while leaving their members, and potential members, mostly in the dark, regarding their defeats, I feel compelled to comment.
I'm perplexed as to why Alcor continues to make public statements about this matter, before the NY case is over, and even more amazed they published questions and answers from the recent deposition. If I was Johnson's attorney, (I'm not an attorney, at all), I would respond by deposing the people who are alleged to be speaking on the tapes Johnson has, and publish their answers. Just think of it...
Question to Alcor Staff Member X: "Mr. X, is that your voice saying to Larry Johnson, "He killed her?"" And if the answer is "Yes,"... "To whom were you referring to, in regard to both the alleged murderer and the alleged victim?"
I could come up with thousands of embarrassing questions, for Alcor staff members, (both past and present), but I'm not interested in playing that game. Johnson et. al.'s attorneys should keep in mind that at least one person who allegedly discussed being involved in at least one illegal euthanasia still works at Alcor. If those tapes are legitimate, (and I, personally, believe they are), Alcor has had staff members who were either actually present when a certain cryonics superstar is said to have performed an illegal euthanasia, or who are psychologically-disturbed individuals who want to pretend they were involved in an illegal euthanasia.
Alcor gloats, "During deposition, Larry Johnson invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 300 times to avoid incriminating himself."
I'm just curious...Who, in that room, did not figure out that Mr. Johnson was not going to answer any questions, after the first 40, or 50? Seriously. Were Alcor's attorneys in control of the length of the deposition? How much do they get paid per hour? How much did Mr. Johnson have to pay his attorney, per hour? Is the goal of this legal battle to get to the truth, or to see who runs out of money, first? (And, for those of you who still think Johnson did this for the money, the court document reports that "over 33,000 copies of the book have been distributed." The cost of his legal battles probably exceeded any money he made, from the book, in the first few months!)
I think Alcor is hoping people will overlook the fact that Alcor cannot really "win" anything, in a hearing regarding Johnson et. al.'s "Motions to Dismiss," other than the right to proceed to trial with their claims. On the other hand, Johnson et. al. did succeed in having some of Alcor's claims thrown out of court.
My favorite part of the Alcor news brief was:
"On October 29, 2010, the New York court denied a motion to dismiss filed by Mr. Johnson. The court would only dismiss for now the "conversion" claim against Mr. Johnson for technical reasons, leaving claims for defamation and other causes of action intact."
http://www.alcor.org/press/response.html
The "technical reason" was that Alcor's allegations were "insufficient to state a claim for conversion as a matter of law," so their claim was dismissed.
Here are some highlights from the recent NY ruling, on Johnson et. al.'s "Motions to Dismiss:"
"In its opposition, Alcor appears to have abandoned its breach of contract claim with respect to the NDA."
"Accordingly, as a matter of law, Alcor has no ground to assert a breach of contract claim based on the Employee Handbook."
The judge leaves Alcor's claims for "Breach of Agreements and Judgment" in regard to the handwritten agreement, and their claim for "Breach of Fiduciary Duty" intact. (That doesn't mean Alcor "wins," only that those claims may proceed to trial.)
"Accordingly, Alcor fails to state a tortious interference with contract against Baldyga."
"According, Alcor's claim for aiding and abetting misappropriation of trade secrets must be dismissed."
The court did not rule on Alcor's status, as a public figure, something that may determine the outcome of a lot of the claims against Johnson et. al.
(From Alcor's statement: "Claims for defamation and other causes of action, including aiding and abetting a breach of fiduciary duty, against Vanguard Press and Scott Baldyga will also continue forward in New York.")
I have been busy with other things, and may not have even noticed the court documents, if not for Alcor's public statement. If Alcor is going to publish self-serving statements, appearing to be "cherry-picking" favorable court decisions, while leaving their members, and potential members, mostly in the dark, regarding their defeats, I feel compelled to comment.
The court documents can be found here: http://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/webcivil/FCASMain (Do an index search for case # 113938/2009.)
***This post may be updated (added to) in the near future. I've wasted enough time blogging about cryonics, this morning.***
Thursday, September 23, 2010
A Partial Review of Suspended Animation's Report for CI-95 (Mr. Curtis Henderson)
My apologies to the people I've been promising this to, for a very long time. I find Suspended Animation's case report to be heavily "padded" with unnecessary detail, which I probably won't ever waste my time commenting on, other than to say I think the unnecessary detail was designed to make SA look more professional, knowledgeable and capable, than they really are. These people do not know what they are doing. If they want to be a team of amateurs, simply "doing the best they can," to provide "something better than nothing," then they need to advertise themselves as such. On the other hand, if they want to publish reports filled with medical terminology, designed to deceive laymen into thinking they are capable of providing advanced medical procedures, and charge exhorbitant fees for those procedures, that is QUACKERY.
Considering the report was written, basically, for an audience of laymen, parts of it appear to be "misleading," at best. SA has a group of qualified perfusionists on retainer, so they certainly had at their disposal, people who were well-aware the "arterial" and "venous" temperatures reported were NOT patient temperatures, but perfusion circuit temperatures. SA's reporting of these temperatures, without explaining to the audience of laymen that those temperatures may be far-removed from the patient's core temperature seems, to me, to be intentional deception.
The black text, in italics, is excerpts from Suspended Animation's case report, for CI-95 (CurtisHenderson, June 2009, Albany, NY), the blue text is my comments. SA's full case report can be found, here: http://suspendedinc.com/cases/Stabilization%20and%20Transport%20Case%20Report%20CI95.pdf
...one of SA’s consulting physicians agreed that death was imminent and a standby team should deploy.
SA has more than one "consulting physician"? What are their names and are any of them skilled in vascular cannulations?
CI was notified of SA’s deployment plans and CI offered the services of its funeral director to make pre-arrangements with a local funeral home to support stabilization and transport efforts. SA accepted this offer of assistance...
It looks like CI's funeral director did a lot of SA's work, for them.
The contract perfusion coordinator was notified of the pending case and location and began arranging coverage. A contract surgeon was contacted and arranged to deploy with the team. Back-up team members were alerted.
Whom does "contract surgeon" refer to? A vascular surgeon? A veterinarian? Someone who works in medical research, but really doesn't know how to perform vascular cannulations? SA is said to have used one of their "contract surgeons," (someone who is not really a surgeon, at all), for another (Alcor) case, at about the same time as the Henderson case, and that person is said to have blundered the cannulation, cutting well into the abdomen, while trying to perform a femoral cannulation.
Just out of curiosity...Was that vehicle a van, or maybe even a "box truck"? (When Larry Johnson mentioned the use of a "box truck," in his book, I believe Alcor's attorneys referred to his remarks as defamatory. Do Alcor's attorneys think the use of such a vehicle is something to be ashamed of?)
One SA staff member departed that afternoon and the contract perfusionist arrived in the evening.
Why did the staff member depart, and why doesn't SA have at least one perfusionist on staff?
The contract surgeon departed because of work obligations. A second contract surgeon was scheduled to arrive early Thursday afternoon. Another SA staff member arrived to replace the one who left.
The patient suffered cardiac arrest and was subsequently pronounced legally dead by the attending Hospitalist at 4:17am.
Note the time.
Over the next 20 minutes, the following medications were administered via IV push...
Who administered these medications? Was it legal for the Albany, NY hospital to allow cryonics personnel to do so? Was it legal for even hospital personnel to push meds, after death had been pronounced?
A nasopharyngeal probe and rectal probe with thermocouples were inserted and the patient’s Foley catheter assembly was removed.
Who inserted the nasopharyngeal probe, and was it properly positioned? (Throughout the case report, I wondered whether the probe was being influenced by room temperature and/or water from the ice bath.)
At that point the patient’s temperatures were approximately 30 C nasopharyngeal and 38 C rectal.
The nasopharyngeal temp is still warm, (about 86F). Rectal temp is quite warm (100.4F).
Team members continued to administer Tromethamine and Epinephrine IV push during transport.
Again, is it legal for laymen to administer medications to the deceased, in New York?
Nasopharyngeal temperature was 25C, rectal temperature was 36C. The sample analysis results are shown in the table below.
Approximately 90 minutes after pronouncement, CI-95's core temperature was still 36C, (normal being approximately 36.5 - 38), in spite of SA's efforts. Brain death occurs within minutes, at normal body temperature.
25.0ºC
pH 7.324
PCO2 mmHg 29.7
PO2 mmHg 6
Sample Type Ven
PtTemp 25.0 (77F - still pretty warm.) Did SA selectively report the coldest of the two temperatures they were recording?
CANNULATION
Arriving at the funeral home at 6:35am, the patient was moved from the vehicle into the facility’s small embalming room.
Note time is 6:35am, when SA arrives at mortuary.
The funeral director had not arrived at the facility. The Team Leader prepared the patient’s right groin for surgery by swabbing with ChloroPrep and draping with sterile towels. The approximate location of the femoral artery and vein was determined referencing the midpoint along the inguinal crease between the pubic symphysis and iliac crest."
This looks like someone reciting from a textbook, rather than someone who actually knows how to locate the femoral vessels, and perform a vascular cannulation...technical mumbo-jumbo, from people who are not qualified to attempt these procedures in real life.
Using a #10 scalpel blade an 8cm incision was made at this midpoint, just below the inguinal crease along the longitudinal axis of the leg. Blunt dissection and electro-cautery were used to clear a 3cm layer of heavy adipose tissue to expose the muscle. Additional blunt dissection clearing 2cm layer of muscle was made through heavy pooling of bright red blood from the surrounding tissues. Hemostasis with surgical sponges was ineffective. After 20 minutes of dissection the femoral capsule and vessels were not visible and a consulting physician was called.
More padding, and incompetence at its best. SA's personnel, who don't know what they are doing, are asking for advice on how to perform the surgical procedures they are selling...from someone over the telephone, no less.
He suggested additional adduction of the thigh.
You have a group of people, who don't seem to have a clue as to how to find the femoral blood vessels, (some of the largest blood vessels in the human body), and the physician they call tells them to move the leg toward the midline??? You've got to be kidding me. Greater femoral access is gained with ABDUCTION (the opposite of what was recommended to SA), and external rotation. Did Harris, (the physician who seems to know little about vascular cannulations and perfusion, as performed in conventional medicine), make this recommendation? (Anyone willing to take a bet that whoever made this recommendation will claim, "I said ABduction," or SA will claim it was a typo?)
An affiliated funeral director arrived and was able to direct movement of a muscle mass and identify the vessels before he also left.
This is crazy. A bunch of clueless people, attempting to perform surgical procedures, taking advice from someone over the telephone, when a funeral director, (who obviously doesn't want to have much of a hand in this mess), walks in and says something like "Try looking behind that muscle." Baldwin can recite all the textbook instructions she wants, and call herself a "backup surgeon" (when she's not a surgeon at all), but she did NOT know how to FIND the femorals, much less cannulate them properly.
The vessels were then isolated, separated and cannulated. The vein was 4-5mm in diameter, dark, thin walled, and fragile. Blood flowed freely from it during cannulation. It was ultimately cannulated with a 15 Fr venous cannula inserted approximately 22cm, after attempts to place larger 21 Fr and 19 Fr were unsuccessful. Nearly over the top of the vein, was the artery with multiple feeder vessels between the two. The artery was 6-7mm in diameter, light colored, rubbery and heavy walled.
Again, this looks like someone is writing from a textbook, and only a further demonstration of SA's extreme lack of competence.
Bright red blood flowed freely from it during cannulation. It was cannulated with a 17 Fr arterial cannula inserted approximately 12cm after attempts with a 19 Fr cannula were unsuccessful.
More incompetence.
The cannulae were connected to the extracorporeal bypass circuit on the Stockert SCPC minibypass system that had been primed with MHP2 organ preservation solution and cooled by the perfusionist. No venous drainage was observed.
The cannulation wasn't performed properly. The SA personnel didn't know how to perform their procedures, in spite of having had seven years, and probably close to seven million dollars, to prepare, for this case. This is QUACKERY at its best.
No bubbles or air locks were visible in the circuit.The perfusionist applied mild suction and the AutoPulse was re-started to assist with drainage. Still, no venous return could be seen. The venous cannula was slowly backed out while applying suction and automated chest compressions but no return was visible. Nasopharyngeal temperature was 15C and rectal was 25.6C.
At a core temp of 25.6 (abt 78F), a safe circulatory arrest time is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 - 30 minutes. How many hours did SA have Mr. H. at 25.6 and above? Even at 18C, standard perfusion guidelines call for no longer than 60 minutes of arrest time.
A call was made to CI to determine additional site options for cannulation. A jugular cannulation would not interfere with cryoprotection procedures. The patient’s head was repositioned to the contralateral side and the neck swabbed and prepped for external jugular vein cutdown. The AutoPulse was started to aid location of jugular vein. Pressure to the platysma muscle did not create any obvious jugular pooling. Identification of the external jugular was then made using the mid-point between the angle of the mandible and the top of the clavicle.
Suspended Animation's manager and pseudo-surgeon, Catherine Baldwin, butchered Mr. Curtis Henderson, making at least three incisions, unable to perform a vascular cannulation. More textbook recitations from people who don't know what they are doing.
Using a number 10 scalpel blade, a 3cm incision was made and blunt dissection used to clear the tissue. The jugular was not immediately visible. A call was made to the funeral director about shipping options and additional surgical assistance.
People who require instruction, for surgical procedures, (via telephone, no less!), have no business performing these procedures, much less calling themselves "surgeons."
Flight options to accommodate human remains cargo at this time would be limited to Newark Airport.
I've been told at least two booked flights were missed, while hours passed, and this report indicates Mr. Henderson was at rather tepid temperatures, for much of this time.
An affiliated funeral director would be available to come to the facility in thirty minutes. Additional ice was packed onto the patient. The Ziegler case was delivered by van at 11am.
Note time: They've been at the mortuary for three-and-a-half hours, and they haven't performed a procedure that should take minutes.
A funeral director affiliated with the funeral home arrived and offered to quickly cannulate the femoral vein on the patient’s left side. Opening an 8 cm incision and using an aneurism hook for dissection, his field quickly filled with bright red blood. He located the femorals but in separating them, he accidentally cut the artery and multiple feeders between the artery and vein. These vessels were individually ligated and the wound packed while the funeral director enlarged the jugular incision that had been opened earlier and isolated the jugular. A 17Fr venous cannula was inserted into the jugular vein approximately 30cm and connected to the venous perfusion line. Mild suction was applied. Venous drainage was observed.
At last, some success. A funeral director, (someone who is probably not accustomed to performing vascular cannulations with the same degree of care as a vascular surgeon), appears to have managed to do, in a short period of time, what Baldwin/SA had not been able to accomplish in many hours.
WASHOUT AND PERFUSION
Washout started at 12:11pm. Nasopharyngeal temperature was 11.8C and rectal temp was 23.6C. (74.5F)
After a short period of perfusion, a tourniquet was applied above the left leg wound to minimize leakage of perfusate from this area. To conserve additional perfusate, a second tourniquet was applied with light compression on the tissue around the arterial cannula on the right leg.
No one there knew how to perform a good cannulation, one of the key ingredients of doing a cryonics washout procedure.
Twenty minutes after washout was initiated, arterial temperature was 4.6C and venous temperature was 13.3C
When addressing an audience of laymen, it is DECEPTIVE to write " the arterial temperature was 4.6C and venous temperature was 13.3C." These temperatures are perfusion circuit temperatures and DO NOT reflect patient temperatures. What they are calling an "arterial temperature" is the temperature coming out of the heat exchanger in the perfusion circuit, and what they are calling the "venous temperature," is the venous line of the perfusion circuit.
Let's say I have a patient in heart surgery, with a normal body temp. I hook him up to a perfusion circuit. His blood drains into the perfusion circuit, passes through the heat exchanger, and in a relatively short period of time, I am able to return that blood to him, at a temp of 4.6C, and the blood coming back to the perfusion circuit is 13.3C. I could accomplish that, in a very short time, but guess what? The patient may still be quite warm. If I were to turn off my heat exchanger, as soon as I saw a perfusion circuit venous return line temp of 13.3C, the patient would rewarm the blood in my circuit, and those temps would rapidly rise. CI-95's core temperate WAS NOWHERE NEAR THOSE TEMPERATURES.
Think of it this way. You have a hose, running through a bathtub filled with water at 37C. You start flowing cold water into the hose, and pretty soon the water coming out the other end is also cold, but the water in the tub is still warm. This is a very simplistic example, but I'm sure intelligent readers understand that someone could flow extremely cold fluid through a person's circulatory system, for a very short period of time, while most of their body tissues would remain warm. Again, SA is being deceptive in reporting these "arterial" and "venous" temps. These were NOT Mr. Henderson's arterial and venous temps, but those of a perfusion circuit.
After 23 minutes on washout, about 14 of 28L of MHP2 had been used and the circuit was closed for cooling recirculation. The remaining perfusate was added slowly during recirculation to maintain circuit volume. After an additional 20 minutes on closed circuit, arterial temperature was 1.7C and venous was 9.5C.
GROSSLY MISLEADING. Again, these are perfusion circuit temperatures, not patient temperatures. The patient was, most likely, significantly warmer than either of these temperatures.
Perfusion was stopped about five minutes later when the last of the perfusate had been used. There was no longer visible edema in the patient’s upper or lower limbs. There was no visible change in abdominal distension. Arterial temperature was 1.7C and venous temperature was 8.5C. Nasopharyngeal temperature was 8.7C and rectal temperature was 17.5C. The patient’s cooling curve is shown below.
The rectal temp of 17.5C reflects the core temp of the patient. The guidelines for a safe period of circulatory arrest, (one which is unlikely to result in neurological damage), at this temperature, is 45-60 minutes. SA should have continued cooling until ALL the temperatures were as close to 0-degrees C, before ending the perfusion process and transporting. Instead, they took Mr. Henderson on a long car ride, at temperatures known not to sustain cerebral function for an extended period of time.
The patient was disconnected from the extracorporeal bypass circuit with the cannualae clamped and left in place.
Question for CI: Is this correct. Wasn't one cannula missing?
That's enough, for now. There's more to be added, later, but I can't resist skipping ahead to remark (again) on this:
ISSUES IDENTIFIED
DEPLOYMENT AND LOGISTICS
• Arrangements for airline cargo movement of the kits were made the evening before deployment. When the team arrived at the air cargo office at 5am, the agent would not accept the kits because they did not have SA’s federal shipper number, account number and had no air bill for the kit, with these numbers included.
Why would anyone expect people who are not capable of shipping packages to be able to perform surgical procedures and perfusion? For SA to have overnight to prepare, and then show up at the airport, without everything they needed to get their equipment transported is far-beyond incompetent. At the time of this case, they had had seven years, and had probably spent in excess of seven million dollars, to prepare, yet they hadn't even managed to become proficient in transporting their equipment? That's the most simple part of the services they are said to be providing!
Attempting to check the kits as luggage, Continental Airlines would not accept two of the Pelican cases containing the ATP and the MHP2 perfusate because they exceeded maximum allowable weight limits.Two team members stayed behind to make shipping arrangements for the remaining kits, while three team members flew on to Albany. Two team members were delayed by 4 hours and critical kits were delayed by 12 hours.
These people don't have enough sense to get luggage on a plane, much less preserve a brain in a condition that will be viable in the future. http://cryomedical.blogspot.com/2010/09/cryonics-event-in-uk-no-brainer.html
Considering the report was written, basically, for an audience of laymen, parts of it appear to be "misleading," at best. SA has a group of qualified perfusionists on retainer, so they certainly had at their disposal, people who were well-aware the "arterial" and "venous" temperatures reported were NOT patient temperatures, but perfusion circuit temperatures. SA's reporting of these temperatures, without explaining to the audience of laymen that those temperatures may be far-removed from the patient's core temperature seems, to me, to be intentional deception.
The black text, in italics, is excerpts from Suspended Animation's case report, for CI-95 (CurtisHenderson, June 2009, Albany, NY), the blue text is my comments. SA's full case report can be found, here: http://suspendedinc.com/cases/Stabilization%20and%20Transport%20Case%20Report%20CI95.pdf
...one of SA’s consulting physicians agreed that death was imminent and a standby team should deploy.
SA has more than one "consulting physician"? What are their names and are any of them skilled in vascular cannulations?
CI was notified of SA’s deployment plans and CI offered the services of its funeral director to make pre-arrangements with a local funeral home to support stabilization and transport efforts. SA accepted this offer of assistance...
It looks like CI's funeral director did a lot of SA's work, for them.
The contract perfusion coordinator was notified of the pending case and location and began arranging coverage. A contract surgeon was contacted and arranged to deploy with the team. Back-up team members were alerted.
Whom does "contract surgeon" refer to? A vascular surgeon? A veterinarian? Someone who works in medical research, but really doesn't know how to perform vascular cannulations? SA is said to have used one of their "contract surgeons," (someone who is not really a surgeon, at all), for another (Alcor) case, at about the same time as the Henderson case, and that person is said to have blundered the cannulation, cutting well into the abdomen, while trying to perform a femoral cannulation.
A vehicle was rented to accommodate stabilization
equipment and procedures en route to the funeral home.
Just out of curiosity...Was that vehicle a van, or maybe even a "box truck"? (When Larry Johnson mentioned the use of a "box truck," in his book, I believe Alcor's attorneys referred to his remarks as defamatory. Do Alcor's attorneys think the use of such a vehicle is something to be ashamed of?)
One SA staff member departed that afternoon and the contract perfusionist arrived in the evening.
Why did the staff member depart, and why doesn't SA have at least one perfusionist on staff?
The contract surgeon departed because of work obligations. A second contract surgeon was scheduled to arrive early Thursday afternoon. Another SA staff member arrived to replace the one who left.
Why are all these people coming, and going? With so much time on their hands, and so few cases, this is totally ridiculous. SA has SERIOUS PERSONNEL ISSUES, the main one being that, as far as anyone knows, NOT ONE of their full-time staff members is qualified to do a vascular cannulation, or to perform perfusion, (the key ingredients of the high-priced services they sell). To have a payroll and employee-related expenses in the high six figures, without so much as ONE staff member being qualified to perform the medical procedures a company is selling, is simply ludicrous.
Again, what were the qualifications of the "contract surgeon"?
The patient suffered cardiac arrest and was subsequently pronounced legally dead by the attending Hospitalist at 4:17am.
Note the time.
Over the next 20 minutes, the following medications were administered via IV push...
Who administered these medications? Was it legal for the Albany, NY hospital to allow cryonics personnel to do so? Was it legal for even hospital personnel to push meds, after death had been pronounced?
A nasopharyngeal probe and rectal probe with thermocouples were inserted and the patient’s Foley catheter assembly was removed.
Who inserted the nasopharyngeal probe, and was it properly positioned? (Throughout the case report, I wondered whether the probe was being influenced by room temperature and/or water from the ice bath.)
At that point the patient’s temperatures were approximately 30 C nasopharyngeal and 38 C rectal.
The nasopharyngeal temp is still warm, (about 86F). Rectal temp is quite warm (100.4F).
Team members continued to administer Tromethamine and Epinephrine IV push during transport.
Again, is it legal for laymen to administer medications to the deceased, in New York?
Nasopharyngeal temperature was 25C, rectal temperature was 36C. The sample analysis results are shown in the table below.
Approximately 90 minutes after pronouncement, CI-95's core temperature was still 36C, (normal being approximately 36.5 - 38), in spite of SA's efforts. Brain death occurs within minutes, at normal body temperature.
25.0ºC
pH 7.324
PCO2 mmHg 29.7
PO2 mmHg 6
Sample Type Ven
PtTemp 25.0 (77F - still pretty warm.) Did SA selectively report the coldest of the two temperatures they were recording?
CANNULATION
Arriving at the funeral home at 6:35am, the patient was moved from the vehicle into the facility’s small embalming room.
Note time is 6:35am, when SA arrives at mortuary.
The funeral director had not arrived at the facility. The Team Leader prepared the patient’s right groin for surgery by swabbing with ChloroPrep and draping with sterile towels. The approximate location of the femoral artery and vein was determined referencing the midpoint along the inguinal crease between the pubic symphysis and iliac crest."
This looks like someone reciting from a textbook, rather than someone who actually knows how to locate the femoral vessels, and perform a vascular cannulation...technical mumbo-jumbo, from people who are not qualified to attempt these procedures in real life.
Using a #10 scalpel blade an 8cm incision was made at this midpoint, just below the inguinal crease along the longitudinal axis of the leg. Blunt dissection and electro-cautery were used to clear a 3cm layer of heavy adipose tissue to expose the muscle. Additional blunt dissection clearing 2cm layer of muscle was made through heavy pooling of bright red blood from the surrounding tissues. Hemostasis with surgical sponges was ineffective. After 20 minutes of dissection the femoral capsule and vessels were not visible and a consulting physician was called.
More padding, and incompetence at its best. SA's personnel, who don't know what they are doing, are asking for advice on how to perform the surgical procedures they are selling...from someone over the telephone, no less.
He suggested additional adduction of the thigh.
You have a group of people, who don't seem to have a clue as to how to find the femoral blood vessels, (some of the largest blood vessels in the human body), and the physician they call tells them to move the leg toward the midline??? You've got to be kidding me. Greater femoral access is gained with ABDUCTION (the opposite of what was recommended to SA), and external rotation. Did Harris, (the physician who seems to know little about vascular cannulations and perfusion, as performed in conventional medicine), make this recommendation? (Anyone willing to take a bet that whoever made this recommendation will claim, "I said ABduction," or SA will claim it was a typo?)
An affiliated funeral director arrived and was able to direct movement of a muscle mass and identify the vessels before he also left.
This is crazy. A bunch of clueless people, attempting to perform surgical procedures, taking advice from someone over the telephone, when a funeral director, (who obviously doesn't want to have much of a hand in this mess), walks in and says something like "Try looking behind that muscle." Baldwin can recite all the textbook instructions she wants, and call herself a "backup surgeon" (when she's not a surgeon at all), but she did NOT know how to FIND the femorals, much less cannulate them properly.
The vessels were then isolated, separated and cannulated. The vein was 4-5mm in diameter, dark, thin walled, and fragile. Blood flowed freely from it during cannulation. It was ultimately cannulated with a 15 Fr venous cannula inserted approximately 22cm, after attempts to place larger 21 Fr and 19 Fr were unsuccessful. Nearly over the top of the vein, was the artery with multiple feeder vessels between the two. The artery was 6-7mm in diameter, light colored, rubbery and heavy walled.
Again, this looks like someone is writing from a textbook, and only a further demonstration of SA's extreme lack of competence.
Bright red blood flowed freely from it during cannulation. It was cannulated with a 17 Fr arterial cannula inserted approximately 12cm after attempts with a 19 Fr cannula were unsuccessful.
More incompetence.
The cannulae were connected to the extracorporeal bypass circuit on the Stockert SCPC minibypass system that had been primed with MHP2 organ preservation solution and cooled by the perfusionist. No venous drainage was observed.
The cannulation wasn't performed properly. The SA personnel didn't know how to perform their procedures, in spite of having had seven years, and probably close to seven million dollars, to prepare, for this case. This is QUACKERY at its best.
No bubbles or air locks were visible in the circuit.The perfusionist applied mild suction and the AutoPulse was re-started to assist with drainage. Still, no venous return could be seen. The venous cannula was slowly backed out while applying suction and automated chest compressions but no return was visible. Nasopharyngeal temperature was 15C and rectal was 25.6C.
At a core temp of 25.6 (abt 78F), a safe circulatory arrest time is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 - 30 minutes. How many hours did SA have Mr. H. at 25.6 and above? Even at 18C, standard perfusion guidelines call for no longer than 60 minutes of arrest time.
A call was made to CI to determine additional site options for cannulation. A jugular cannulation would not interfere with cryoprotection procedures. The patient’s head was repositioned to the contralateral side and the neck swabbed and prepped for external jugular vein cutdown. The AutoPulse was started to aid location of jugular vein. Pressure to the platysma muscle did not create any obvious jugular pooling. Identification of the external jugular was then made using the mid-point between the angle of the mandible and the top of the clavicle.
Suspended Animation's manager and pseudo-surgeon, Catherine Baldwin, butchered Mr. Curtis Henderson, making at least three incisions, unable to perform a vascular cannulation. More textbook recitations from people who don't know what they are doing.
Using a number 10 scalpel blade, a 3cm incision was made and blunt dissection used to clear the tissue. The jugular was not immediately visible. A call was made to the funeral director about shipping options and additional surgical assistance.
People who require instruction, for surgical procedures, (via telephone, no less!), have no business performing these procedures, much less calling themselves "surgeons."
Flight options to accommodate human remains cargo at this time would be limited to Newark Airport.
I've been told at least two booked flights were missed, while hours passed, and this report indicates Mr. Henderson was at rather tepid temperatures, for much of this time.
An affiliated funeral director would be available to come to the facility in thirty minutes. Additional ice was packed onto the patient. The Ziegler case was delivered by van at 11am.
Note time: They've been at the mortuary for three-and-a-half hours, and they haven't performed a procedure that should take minutes.
A funeral director affiliated with the funeral home arrived and offered to quickly cannulate the femoral vein on the patient’s left side. Opening an 8 cm incision and using an aneurism hook for dissection, his field quickly filled with bright red blood. He located the femorals but in separating them, he accidentally cut the artery and multiple feeders between the artery and vein. These vessels were individually ligated and the wound packed while the funeral director enlarged the jugular incision that had been opened earlier and isolated the jugular. A 17Fr venous cannula was inserted into the jugular vein approximately 30cm and connected to the venous perfusion line. Mild suction was applied. Venous drainage was observed.
At last, some success. A funeral director, (someone who is probably not accustomed to performing vascular cannulations with the same degree of care as a vascular surgeon), appears to have managed to do, in a short period of time, what Baldwin/SA had not been able to accomplish in many hours.
WASHOUT AND PERFUSION
Washout started at 12:11pm. Nasopharyngeal temperature was 11.8C and rectal temp was 23.6C. (74.5F)
After a short period of perfusion, a tourniquet was applied above the left leg wound to minimize leakage of perfusate from this area. To conserve additional perfusate, a second tourniquet was applied with light compression on the tissue around the arterial cannula on the right leg.
No one there knew how to perform a good cannulation, one of the key ingredients of doing a cryonics washout procedure.
Twenty minutes after washout was initiated, arterial temperature was 4.6C and venous temperature was 13.3C
When addressing an audience of laymen, it is DECEPTIVE to write " the arterial temperature was 4.6C and venous temperature was 13.3C." These temperatures are perfusion circuit temperatures and DO NOT reflect patient temperatures. What they are calling an "arterial temperature" is the temperature coming out of the heat exchanger in the perfusion circuit, and what they are calling the "venous temperature," is the venous line of the perfusion circuit.
Let's say I have a patient in heart surgery, with a normal body temp. I hook him up to a perfusion circuit. His blood drains into the perfusion circuit, passes through the heat exchanger, and in a relatively short period of time, I am able to return that blood to him, at a temp of 4.6C, and the blood coming back to the perfusion circuit is 13.3C. I could accomplish that, in a very short time, but guess what? The patient may still be quite warm. If I were to turn off my heat exchanger, as soon as I saw a perfusion circuit venous return line temp of 13.3C, the patient would rewarm the blood in my circuit, and those temps would rapidly rise. CI-95's core temperate WAS NOWHERE NEAR THOSE TEMPERATURES.
Think of it this way. You have a hose, running through a bathtub filled with water at 37C. You start flowing cold water into the hose, and pretty soon the water coming out the other end is also cold, but the water in the tub is still warm. This is a very simplistic example, but I'm sure intelligent readers understand that someone could flow extremely cold fluid through a person's circulatory system, for a very short period of time, while most of their body tissues would remain warm. Again, SA is being deceptive in reporting these "arterial" and "venous" temps. These were NOT Mr. Henderson's arterial and venous temps, but those of a perfusion circuit.
After 23 minutes on washout, about 14 of 28L of MHP2 had been used and the circuit was closed for cooling recirculation. The remaining perfusate was added slowly during recirculation to maintain circuit volume. After an additional 20 minutes on closed circuit, arterial temperature was 1.7C and venous was 9.5C.
GROSSLY MISLEADING. Again, these are perfusion circuit temperatures, not patient temperatures. The patient was, most likely, significantly warmer than either of these temperatures.
Perfusion was stopped about five minutes later when the last of the perfusate had been used. There was no longer visible edema in the patient’s upper or lower limbs. There was no visible change in abdominal distension. Arterial temperature was 1.7C and venous temperature was 8.5C. Nasopharyngeal temperature was 8.7C and rectal temperature was 17.5C. The patient’s cooling curve is shown below.
The rectal temp of 17.5C reflects the core temp of the patient. The guidelines for a safe period of circulatory arrest, (one which is unlikely to result in neurological damage), at this temperature, is 45-60 minutes. SA should have continued cooling until ALL the temperatures were as close to 0-degrees C, before ending the perfusion process and transporting. Instead, they took Mr. Henderson on a long car ride, at temperatures known not to sustain cerebral function for an extended period of time.
The patient was disconnected from the extracorporeal bypass circuit with the cannualae clamped and left in place.
Question for CI: Is this correct. Wasn't one cannula missing?
That's enough, for now. There's more to be added, later, but I can't resist skipping ahead to remark (again) on this:
ISSUES IDENTIFIED
DEPLOYMENT AND LOGISTICS
• Arrangements for airline cargo movement of the kits were made the evening before deployment. When the team arrived at the air cargo office at 5am, the agent would not accept the kits because they did not have SA’s federal shipper number, account number and had no air bill for the kit, with these numbers included.
Why would anyone expect people who are not capable of shipping packages to be able to perform surgical procedures and perfusion? For SA to have overnight to prepare, and then show up at the airport, without everything they needed to get their equipment transported is far-beyond incompetent. At the time of this case, they had had seven years, and had probably spent in excess of seven million dollars, to prepare, yet they hadn't even managed to become proficient in transporting their equipment? That's the most simple part of the services they are said to be providing!
Attempting to check the kits as luggage, Continental Airlines would not accept two of the Pelican cases containing the ATP and the MHP2 perfusate because they exceeded maximum allowable weight limits.Two team members stayed behind to make shipping arrangements for the remaining kits, while three team members flew on to Albany. Two team members were delayed by 4 hours and critical kits were delayed by 12 hours.
These people don't have enough sense to get luggage on a plane, much less preserve a brain in a condition that will be viable in the future. http://cryomedical.blogspot.com/2010/09/cryonics-event-in-uk-no-brainer.html
Saturday, June 19, 2010
The Johnson/Baldyga/Vanguard Attorneys (NY)
Regardless of the outcome, in the Alcor vs. Johnson et. al. case, my comment to the defendants' attorneys, (in response to their recently-filed court documents), would be:
"YOU GUYS ROCK!!!"
Certain cryonics activities need to be exposed to the "light of day," in my opinion. If they can get their case in front of a jury; bring in medical experts familiar with existing hypothermic arrest procedures and engineers familiar with the related medical equipment; expose Alcor's "surgeons" and other "medical personnel" for what they really are(n't); a couple of financial experts who could explain that these companies DO have the money to provide a much higher standard of care; and maybe a few experts in ethics and psychiatry....
Well, who knows, what might happen...but it would surely be an interesting ball game...one even Ted Williams might have appreciated.
"YOU GUYS ROCK!!!"
Certain cryonics activities need to be exposed to the "light of day," in my opinion. If they can get their case in front of a jury; bring in medical experts familiar with existing hypothermic arrest procedures and engineers familiar with the related medical equipment; expose Alcor's "surgeons" and other "medical personnel" for what they really are(n't); a couple of financial experts who could explain that these companies DO have the money to provide a much higher standard of care; and maybe a few experts in ethics and psychiatry....
Well, who knows, what might happen...but it would surely be an interesting ball game...one even Ted Williams might have appreciated.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Patents in Cryonics
Recently, Steve Harris tried to impress me, (or maybe other readers of the "Cold Filter" cryonics forum), by stating he holds a "novel propofol formulation patent in several countries, with more to come." Apparently, Harris has not paid attention to my previous posts, regarding patents. If a person was to tell me they held one hundred patents, without being able to prove any of their patented items had been successfully marketed, all they would have convinced me of is that they, (or someone funding their activities), had spent a whole lot of money. Just about anybody willing to spend the money, could hold any number of "novel formulation" patents, but that wouldn't mean any of them were safe, effective, worthy of FDA-approval, or marketable. While the people funding cryonics activities may find the issuance of patents impressive, I don't. Most patents are worthless. When Harris comes back with proof his patented propofol formulation has received FDA-approval and is being marketed by a major pharmaceutical company, then I'll be impressed. Other than the inventors, (whose activities have been funded by LEF and/or Alcor), and maybe some patent attorneys, has anyone ever made a penny off of any of the patents related to the activities of cryonics organizations?
Hopefully, Harris et. al.'s laboratory work isn't as sloppy as one of their patent recent applications: http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jspWO=2009042220&IA=US2008011224&DISPLAY=DESC
In this particular application, there were numerous very careless errors, which I spotted the first time I read it. For example, they were "induc(ing)hyperthermia in order to decrease mammalian temperature..." ("Inducing hyperthermia" means warming, not cooling.) I understand typos, but for a Harris' group to submit a patent application in which they consistently confused the terms for heating and cooling, is beyond sloppy. Glaringly obvious, careless mistakes, such as those, make it appear as though no one bothered to review the document, before it was submitted and published on the Internet. I wrote more about it, here:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1257168041/Sloppy+Patent+Work+-+Critical+Care+Research
Hopefully, Harris et. al.'s laboratory work isn't as sloppy as one of their patent recent applications: http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jspWO=2009042220&IA=US2008011224&DISPLAY=DESC
In this particular application, there were numerous very careless errors, which I spotted the first time I read it. For example, they were "induc(ing)hyperthermia in order to decrease mammalian temperature..." ("Inducing hyperthermia" means warming, not cooling.) I understand typos, but for a Harris' group to submit a patent application in which they consistently confused the terms for heating and cooling, is beyond sloppy. Glaringly obvious, careless mistakes, such as those, make it appear as though no one bothered to review the document, before it was submitted and published on the Internet. I wrote more about it, here:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1257168041/Sloppy+Patent+Work+-+Critical+Care+Research
Monday, March 15, 2010
Inconsistencies from Steve Harris MD
Recently, when I was questioning the use of the drug propofol, during cryonics field procedures, Steve Harris MD responded with, "We give 200 mg. There you are. If there are any signs of awareness later, such as eyelid movement or even shivering (not a sign of awareness but certainly a sign of CNS activity), another equal dose is held in reserve." http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1268000067/Propofol+dose Since Alcor and SA are the only two companies selling cryonics field procedures ("standby, stabilization and transport" services) and Steve Harris works with both of those companies, (he's the "Chief Medical Advisor" of Alcor, a "Director" of Suspended Animation, and usually the "consulting MD" for their field procedures), I thought it was safe to assume his collective "we" meant Alcor and SA.
After I located an inventory of SA's meds kits, and noted it did not contain 200mg of propofol, "in reserve," Harris responded with, "We ourselves carry backup doses of many "small volume" medications, since just an extra dose of the meds with no extra syringe or other equipment requires very little extra room in the kit, and then one has a backup if a vial is accidently broken. I thought Alcor and SAI did this. If not, I'll formally suggest it." http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1268372701/I+Can%27t+Believe+You+Missed+
Harris seems to be asking us to believe he wasn't responding on behalf of Alcor and SA, but I'm not buying it. Why would he be responding to my questions, regarding Alcor and SA's protocols, with information about some other entity, which doesn't even sell "standby, stabilization and transport" services? Is it not true that both Alcor and Suspended Animation keep standby kits at CCR? Are we now being asked to believe CCR keeps a different set of meds, and Harris doesn't know what is in Alcor's and SA's kits? Why would they do that, and why would a physician who is the common thread between ALL the cryonics care providers, (Harris is also on the Advisory Board of Cryonics Institute), not have standardized the meds kits many years ago? Is he not the person who designed the meds protocols for Alcor and Suspended Animation? Has he not worked with Alcor for more than 20 years? Has he not worked with Suspended Animation for the entirety of their existence, nearly eight years? I find Harris to be inconsistent, and not very credible. If he doesn't know what SA and Alcor are doing, maybe he should let them speak for themselves.
After I located an inventory of SA's meds kits, and noted it did not contain 200mg of propofol, "in reserve," Harris responded with, "We ourselves carry backup doses of many "small volume" medications, since just an extra dose of the meds with no extra syringe or other equipment requires very little extra room in the kit, and then one has a backup if a vial is accidently broken. I thought Alcor and SAI did this. If not, I'll formally suggest it." http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1268372701/I+Can%27t+Believe+You+Missed+
Harris seems to be asking us to believe he wasn't responding on behalf of Alcor and SA, but I'm not buying it. Why would he be responding to my questions, regarding Alcor and SA's protocols, with information about some other entity, which doesn't even sell "standby, stabilization and transport" services? Is it not true that both Alcor and Suspended Animation keep standby kits at CCR? Are we now being asked to believe CCR keeps a different set of meds, and Harris doesn't know what is in Alcor's and SA's kits? Why would they do that, and why would a physician who is the common thread between ALL the cryonics care providers, (Harris is also on the Advisory Board of Cryonics Institute), not have standardized the meds kits many years ago? Is he not the person who designed the meds protocols for Alcor and Suspended Animation? Has he not worked with Alcor for more than 20 years? Has he not worked with Suspended Animation for the entirety of their existence, nearly eight years? I find Harris to be inconsistent, and not very credible. If he doesn't know what SA and Alcor are doing, maybe he should let them speak for themselves.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Alcor's Chief Medical Advisor Posts Inaccurate Information, Yet Again
Steve Harris MD, (Alcor's Chief Medical Advisor), posting on the "Anti-Cult" site:
"Ms. Maxim is hardly shocked, as years ago she worked for a cryonics company where it was her job to inventory medical kits which stocked propofol for use in cryonics patients."
http://forum.rickross.com/read.php?12,64749,page=31
Ms. Maxim is shocked to see Steve Harris MD persist in publicly describing her activities, at Suspended Animation, in spite of the fact he is well aware that many of his previous comments on her activities were blatant lies.
In the past, Steve Harris MD has gone so far as to falsely accuse me of lying about my credentials and of stealing documents from my employee folder, (including a non-disclosure agreement that never existed), at Suspended Animation. As Harris knows, the person who provided him with this false information hired an attorney and issued a public retraction and apology, after I threatened to sue all of them for libel. Harris works at Critical Care Research (CCR) in California, Suspended Animation (SA) is in Florida. Harris never set foot in the SA facility, while I was there. It was not my "job to inventory medical kits which stocked propofol." That was Kelly Kingston's job, something Harris should be well aware of, since, when he publicly blamed me for needed medical equipment that was not in the kits for a case, (five months after my resignation, no less), I made it very clear that, while I was working at SA, no one had been allowed to open the kits, (much less add anything, or remove anything), other than under the supervision of Kelly Kingston, who was responsible for the inventory of the kits. (Harris might refer to Charles Platt's apology, Paragraph V.)
Regardless, I was indeed aware that propofol was a medication in SA's standby protocol. HOWEVER, it was my understanding this was ONE dose, to be administered immediately after death had been pronounced. I was never made aware of a policy Harris recently described, (on the Cold Filter cryonics forum), which calls for administering additional propofol to a person who shows signs of life, during a cryonics procedure. Anyone who shows signs of awareness is not dead, and it is illegal to perform cryonics procedures on people who are alive. I am truly shocked that Harris would make such a statement, and not seem to realize the implications.
.
"Ms. Maxim is hardly shocked, as years ago she worked for a cryonics company where it was her job to inventory medical kits which stocked propofol for use in cryonics patients."
http://forum.rickross.com/read.php?12,64749,page=31
Ms. Maxim is shocked to see Steve Harris MD persist in publicly describing her activities, at Suspended Animation, in spite of the fact he is well aware that many of his previous comments on her activities were blatant lies.
In the past, Steve Harris MD has gone so far as to falsely accuse me of lying about my credentials and of stealing documents from my employee folder, (including a non-disclosure agreement that never existed), at Suspended Animation. As Harris knows, the person who provided him with this false information hired an attorney and issued a public retraction and apology, after I threatened to sue all of them for libel. Harris works at Critical Care Research (CCR) in California, Suspended Animation (SA) is in Florida. Harris never set foot in the SA facility, while I was there. It was not my "job to inventory medical kits which stocked propofol." That was Kelly Kingston's job, something Harris should be well aware of, since, when he publicly blamed me for needed medical equipment that was not in the kits for a case, (five months after my resignation, no less), I made it very clear that, while I was working at SA, no one had been allowed to open the kits, (much less add anything, or remove anything), other than under the supervision of Kelly Kingston, who was responsible for the inventory of the kits. (Harris might refer to Charles Platt's apology, Paragraph V.)
Regardless, I was indeed aware that propofol was a medication in SA's standby protocol. HOWEVER, it was my understanding this was ONE dose, to be administered immediately after death had been pronounced. I was never made aware of a policy Harris recently described, (on the Cold Filter cryonics forum), which calls for administering additional propofol to a person who shows signs of life, during a cryonics procedure. Anyone who shows signs of awareness is not dead, and it is illegal to perform cryonics procedures on people who are alive. I am truly shocked that Harris would make such a statement, and not seem to realize the implications.
.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Steve Harris MD Drops Bombshell on Cold Filter Cryonics Forum
***Edited March 12, 2010, with note at the bottom.
On March 7, 2010, Steven B Harris MD, of Critical Care Research, a physician associated with both Alcor Life Extension Foundation and Suspended Animation, wrote the following, on the Cold Filter cryonics forum, in response to my questions about the drug propofol (Diprivan):
"We give 200 mg. There you are. If there are any signs of awareness later, such as eyelid movement or even shivering (not a sign of awareness but certainly a sign of CNS activity), another equal dose is held in reserve."
http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1268000067/Propofol+dose
In other words, they give an initial dose of 200mg propofol to people, at the time of "legal death." Then, in the event the person for whom they are providing cryonics services, (which include the application of CPR), shows signs of life, they give another 200mg dose of propofol, to render the person unconscious, so they can continue with their cryonics procedures. (The "we" in Harris' post refers to cryonics standby teams from Alcor Life Extension Foundation, in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Suspended Animation, in Boynton Beach, Florida. Suspended Animation also provides standby services for Cryonics Institute, in Michigan.)
If they see signs of life, administer more propofol, and continue with their procedures, (which would result in death), could they be accused of murder? Since Harris' statement indicates this has been planned in advance, would it be premeditated murder? Are Baldwin, Kingston, Battiato, Sullivan, Schroeder or Ruc, (the last publicly-named employees of Suspended Animation), willing to administer that "reserve" dose of propofol to a person showing signs of life? What about Alcor paramedic, Aaron Drake? Are the licensed, certified perfusionists who have been working with Suspended Animation aware of this policy? Are they willing to be a part of it? What about Ben Best, the president of Cryonics Institute, who has been an enthusiastic advocate of Suspended Animation's services? Does he, or anyone else at Cryonics Institute, endorse this plan?
For several years, now, I have been questioning certain cryonics activities, especially those that appear to be "ticking time bombs," with the potential to bring down the entire cryonics industry. I firmly believe that, considering the amount of money being invested by Life Extension Foundation, (which provides funding for Suspended Animation, Critical Care Research and 21st Century Medicine), and Alcor, (which also receives some funding from Life Extension Foundation), cryonics activities could be carried out in a much more ethical, professional manner. I believe there are ways to provide services superior to those currently being provided, and in a manner that would not constantly draw accusations of unethical and/or illegal behaviors. Is it the goal of the organizations involved to protect the cryonics industry, by properly addressing issues, such as this one? Or, do they really think quashing people like Larry Johnson, and me, would solve all their problems? I've got news for them...for every person who complains about them, publicly, there are dozens who are taking other avenues to register their complaints.
Harris: "If there are any signs of awareness later, such as eyelid movement or even shivering (not a sign of awareness but certainly a sign of CNS activity), another equal dose is held in reserve."
Maxim: Did Harris just write that, in the event a cryonics patient shows signs of life, the cryonics team is going to give them another dose of propofol? Shivering means the muscles are receiving signals from the hypothalamus and, as far as I know, legally dead people do not shiver. In fact, when people are subjected to hypothermia, they usually stop shivering even before they lose consciousness.
Note: On March 12, 2010, Steve Harris MD commented, further, on the use of propofol, in cryonics. He wrote:
"It is thus in cryonics that there is a theoretical possibility that a person in cardiac arrest who has been classed as legally dead might become aware of chest compression. We all hope this never happens, and part of the purpose of propofol is be sure that it does not."
http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1268372701/I+Can%27t+Believe+You+Missed+This
Anyone who "becomes aware" is alive, and it is illegal to perform cryonics procedures on people who are alive. Harris has already stated that they keep 200mg of propofol in "reserve," in case the person shows signs of awareness (life). This strongly implies they fully intend to inject a living person with the drug propofol, so they can continue their cryonics procedures, in the event someone responds to their CPR efforts and regains consciousness.
The protocols need to be revised and, no, (in a response to a question in Harris' post), I am not suggesting waiting 10-15 minutes. If that is the only alternative Harris and his peers can come up with, they aren't thinking very hard. The problem with the status quo in cryonics, is they are not open to change, especially if it involves admitting they have been wrong, or changing any of the protocols and/or equipment they have designed.
On March 7, 2010, Steven B Harris MD, of Critical Care Research, a physician associated with both Alcor Life Extension Foundation and Suspended Animation, wrote the following, on the Cold Filter cryonics forum, in response to my questions about the drug propofol (Diprivan):
"We give 200 mg. There you are. If there are any signs of awareness later, such as eyelid movement or even shivering (not a sign of awareness but certainly a sign of CNS activity), another equal dose is held in reserve."
http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1268000067/Propofol+dose
In other words, they give an initial dose of 200mg propofol to people, at the time of "legal death." Then, in the event the person for whom they are providing cryonics services, (which include the application of CPR), shows signs of life, they give another 200mg dose of propofol, to render the person unconscious, so they can continue with their cryonics procedures. (The "we" in Harris' post refers to cryonics standby teams from Alcor Life Extension Foundation, in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Suspended Animation, in Boynton Beach, Florida. Suspended Animation also provides standby services for Cryonics Institute, in Michigan.)
If they see signs of life, administer more propofol, and continue with their procedures, (which would result in death), could they be accused of murder? Since Harris' statement indicates this has been planned in advance, would it be premeditated murder? Are Baldwin, Kingston, Battiato, Sullivan, Schroeder or Ruc, (the last publicly-named employees of Suspended Animation), willing to administer that "reserve" dose of propofol to a person showing signs of life? What about Alcor paramedic, Aaron Drake? Are the licensed, certified perfusionists who have been working with Suspended Animation aware of this policy? Are they willing to be a part of it? What about Ben Best, the president of Cryonics Institute, who has been an enthusiastic advocate of Suspended Animation's services? Does he, or anyone else at Cryonics Institute, endorse this plan?
For several years, now, I have been questioning certain cryonics activities, especially those that appear to be "ticking time bombs," with the potential to bring down the entire cryonics industry. I firmly believe that, considering the amount of money being invested by Life Extension Foundation, (which provides funding for Suspended Animation, Critical Care Research and 21st Century Medicine), and Alcor, (which also receives some funding from Life Extension Foundation), cryonics activities could be carried out in a much more ethical, professional manner. I believe there are ways to provide services superior to those currently being provided, and in a manner that would not constantly draw accusations of unethical and/or illegal behaviors. Is it the goal of the organizations involved to protect the cryonics industry, by properly addressing issues, such as this one? Or, do they really think quashing people like Larry Johnson, and me, would solve all their problems? I've got news for them...for every person who complains about them, publicly, there are dozens who are taking other avenues to register their complaints.
Harris: "If there are any signs of awareness later, such as eyelid movement or even shivering (not a sign of awareness but certainly a sign of CNS activity), another equal dose is held in reserve."
Maxim: Did Harris just write that, in the event a cryonics patient shows signs of life, the cryonics team is going to give them another dose of propofol? Shivering means the muscles are receiving signals from the hypothalamus and, as far as I know, legally dead people do not shiver. In fact, when people are subjected to hypothermia, they usually stop shivering even before they lose consciousness.
Note: On March 12, 2010, Steve Harris MD commented, further, on the use of propofol, in cryonics. He wrote:
"It is thus in cryonics that there is a theoretical possibility that a person in cardiac arrest who has been classed as legally dead might become aware of chest compression. We all hope this never happens, and part of the purpose of propofol is be sure that it does not."
http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1268372701/I+Can%27t+Believe+You+Missed+This
Anyone who "becomes aware" is alive, and it is illegal to perform cryonics procedures on people who are alive. Harris has already stated that they keep 200mg of propofol in "reserve," in case the person shows signs of awareness (life). This strongly implies they fully intend to inject a living person with the drug propofol, so they can continue their cryonics procedures, in the event someone responds to their CPR efforts and regains consciousness.
The protocols need to be revised and, no, (in a response to a question in Harris' post), I am not suggesting waiting 10-15 minutes. If that is the only alternative Harris and his peers can come up with, they aren't thinking very hard. The problem with the status quo in cryonics, is they are not open to change, especially if it involves admitting they have been wrong, or changing any of the protocols and/or equipment they have designed.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Responses to my Questions about Propofol
When I worked in heart surgery, every person in the room had a job to do. While I could tell you the basics of most of the drugs the anesthesia personnel were administering, I didn't always know the specifics about the dosing, just as they did not know the details about the job I was doing. In the short time I worked at SA, I never got around to fully exploring, much less questioning, the medications protocol. At the time, I had no reason to question the designers of the protocols, and I was spending more time than I should have had to spend, fighting for changes that were within my realm of expertise, and some that seemed like they should have been simple common sense.
After the Johnson book came out, people started to ask me about the use of certain drugs in cryonics, and after the Michael Jackson incident, the focus centered on propofol. People wanted to know why laymen had access to a drug most medical professionals working in hospitals aren't allowed access to. When I raised that issue on the Cold Filter cryonics forum, Mathew Sullivan responded that Suspended Animation (SA) was not carrying enough propofol to warrant anyone accusing them of hastening the deaths of patients. Not recalling what SA's dose was, and not having one of SA's handy-dandy laminated protocols available, (three years after my resignation from that company), I remembered the meds were listed in the CI-81 case report. When I read "20mg," and looked up the dosing for propofol, I thought, "Geeez...that's nothing more than a hand-waving gesture." (Note: Somewhere along the line, I inadvertently starting typing "25mg," rather than "20mg." Platt can go on about this all he wants, but it's really meaningless. What is important is that I was questioning an extremely small dose.)
When Harris explained the dose was 200mg, and Platt said the amount in the SA report was a typo, I wrote that even 200mg seemed like a meaningless dose. Platt responded to that, with some wisecrack about my expertise, (as if "expertise" has ever been important to someone who totally disregards an expert's advice on existing equipment and sends laymen to perform medical procedures). It doesn't take expertise to form the opinion that 200mg is not enough propofol to keep someone unconscious very long, with readily-available information, regarding propofol dosing. Propofol is super-fast acting, but the effects are very short-lived, and it moves rapidly from the central nervous system, into the peripheral tissues. I think anyone reading the following information would agree that 200mg of propofol doesn't seem like enough to do what Mathew, FD and Harris claimed it was doing, ("keeping people dead," while CPR was being administered).
"anesthesia induction (healthy adults less than 55 yo)
Dose: 2-2.5 mg/kg IV given as 40 mg q10sec until induction onset...
...anesthesia maintenance (healthy adults less than 55 yo)
Dose: 0.1-0.2 mg/kg/min IV; Alt: 25-50 mg IV prn"
https://online.epocrates.com/u/1011979/Diprivan/Adult+Dosing
Using the low end of this suggested dosing, for a 70kg (154lb) man, the dosing would be 140mg for induction, followed by 7mg per min (420mg per hour)."
.
After the Johnson book came out, people started to ask me about the use of certain drugs in cryonics, and after the Michael Jackson incident, the focus centered on propofol. People wanted to know why laymen had access to a drug most medical professionals working in hospitals aren't allowed access to. When I raised that issue on the Cold Filter cryonics forum, Mathew Sullivan responded that Suspended Animation (SA) was not carrying enough propofol to warrant anyone accusing them of hastening the deaths of patients. Not recalling what SA's dose was, and not having one of SA's handy-dandy laminated protocols available, (three years after my resignation from that company), I remembered the meds were listed in the CI-81 case report. When I read "20mg," and looked up the dosing for propofol, I thought, "Geeez...that's nothing more than a hand-waving gesture." (Note: Somewhere along the line, I inadvertently starting typing "25mg," rather than "20mg." Platt can go on about this all he wants, but it's really meaningless. What is important is that I was questioning an extremely small dose.)
When Harris explained the dose was 200mg, and Platt said the amount in the SA report was a typo, I wrote that even 200mg seemed like a meaningless dose. Platt responded to that, with some wisecrack about my expertise, (as if "expertise" has ever been important to someone who totally disregards an expert's advice on existing equipment and sends laymen to perform medical procedures). It doesn't take expertise to form the opinion that 200mg is not enough propofol to keep someone unconscious very long, with readily-available information, regarding propofol dosing. Propofol is super-fast acting, but the effects are very short-lived, and it moves rapidly from the central nervous system, into the peripheral tissues. I think anyone reading the following information would agree that 200mg of propofol doesn't seem like enough to do what Mathew, FD and Harris claimed it was doing, ("keeping people dead," while CPR was being administered).
"anesthesia induction (healthy adults less than 55 yo)
Dose: 2-2.5 mg/kg IV given as 40 mg q10sec until induction onset...
...anesthesia maintenance (healthy adults less than 55 yo)
Dose: 0.1-0.2 mg/kg/min IV; Alt: 25-50 mg IV prn"
https://online.epocrates.com/u/1011979/Diprivan/Adult+Dosing
Using the low end of this suggested dosing, for a 70kg (154lb) man, the dosing would be 140mg for induction, followed by 7mg per min (420mg per hour)."
.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Retracting My Acceptance of Steve Harris' Apology
Back in November 2009, Steve Harris MD, of Critical Care Research, in Rancho Cucamonga, CA, (primarily funded by Life Extension Foundation), issued an apology, to me, on the "Cold Filter" cryonics forum, for untrue remarks he posted in 2007. I accepted his apology, at the time, but after further thought, I think I made a mistake.
In his apology, Harris claimed to have thought he had already apologized. The truth is, when I asked him to apologize at the time he posted the untrue statements, he responded with, "So sue me, baby." I find it impossible to believe he went from that remark to thinking he had issued an apology. Harris also claimed to be interested in knowing the truth, regarding the false statements he had made about me, on the Internet. I publicly invited him to contact me, privately, so I could provide him with the details without rehashing the events, in public, again. Since he didn't follow up, I was left wondering if his apology was insincere, and issued only with the goal of cleaning up his tarnished public image. Furthermore, since the apology, I've had to ask myself if Steve Harris is someone I would want to be congenial with, and the unequivocal answer to that is "No."
In his book, "Mothermelters," former Riverside County Coroner's Investigator Alan Kunzman wrote that Steve Harris admitted to knowing a woman, whose death certificate he signed, had died in an industrial park, though the death certificate falsely indicated she died at a residence. Why would he do sign such a document, if he was aware of the inaccuracy?
Steve Harris, and members of his family, have financially benefitted for many years, for conducting dog experiments, which I find to be highly questionable. According to LEF's form 990's, in the years 2008 and 2007, alone, Critical Care Research received nearly two million dollars, ($1,824,500), in funding, from LEF. When I was working at Suspended Animation, I was told the four fulltime employees of CCR were Harris, his wife, his mother-in-law and her significant other. We don't know who the employees currently are, (though I think it's probably safe to assume nothing much has changed), or much about what goes on at CCR. Like their sister LEF-funded organization, Suspended Animation, they are quite secretive.
Steve Harris endorses physicians, such as himself, being allowed to write prescriptions for medications to be transported and administered by cryonics personnel, (including laymen, with no medical credentials, or experience), who would not be allowed to have access to, transport, or administer these medications, in a conventional medical setting. He gets paid for acting as a "consultant," for these inexperienced persons, but does not accept responsibility for their activities. When I remarked on him not advising a cryonics team to give a maintainence dose of a certain medication, he said he would have done so, "if they had asked." He knows, as well as I do, that those people did not know to ask about any of the medications they were administering.
When I criticized CCR's sister organization, Suspended Animation, of Boynton Beach, FL, (also funded by Life Extension Foundation), Steve Harris responded by posting numerous blatant lies about me, (someone he did not know), on the Internet. A responsible physician might have written, "I have concerns about Ms. Maxim's statements, because I've heard some disturbing stories about her," but Harris wrote, I did and didn't do certain things, while working at Suspended Animation, as fact, when he had no firsthand knowledge of what I did, or didn't do, at SA, and everything he wrote was a lie. Why would he do such a foolish thing? In order to fulfill his benefactor's "loyalty" requirement?
Recently, when I questioned cryonics organizations allowing laymen to have free access to, transport, and administer the drug propofol, Steve Harris, along with SA employee Mathew Sullivan, and "FD" an anonymous poster on the Cold Filter cryonics forum, argued that the 20mg* of propofol in question was necessary so Alcor and/or SA could administer CPR to patients who had just died, without causing them pain, or waking them up. Nonsense. Propofol has an extremely short duration of action, (minutes), and a conservative dosing of propofol, for a 70kg (154lb) man, for the purposes of maintaining unconsciousness would be 140mg for induction, followed by 7mg per min (420mg per hour). https://online.epocrates.com/u/1011979/Diprivan/Adult+Dosing
As for Harris' claim that cryonics organizations were "ahead" of conventional medicine, in recognizing that persons being subjected to CPR might experience pain, I'm going to remind him the people receiving cryonics services are supposed to be dead, and therefore, should not perceive pain. I'm also still waiting for him, or anyone else, to provide evidence of civil lawsuits that have resulted from patient awareness and pain, during the administration of CPR.
So, why is Steve Harris willing to endorse writing prescriptions for laymen to carry and administer 20mg* of propofol? I don't believe responsible physicians would endorse such activity. Was including propofol in cryonics medications protocol designed to make the public think the people carrying this, and other prescription medications, are medical professionals? Does it make them feel like they are medical professionals? Does it offer Steve Harris a greater degree of job security? Is it really a good idea for cryonics organization to be using this drug, in light of past accusations of hastening the deaths of patients?
In my opinion, Steve Harris MD is a physician who has acted irresponsibly, unprofessionally, and/or unethically, on at least several occasions. I seriously doubt his apology was sincere, and therefore, have no reason to accept it.
*Note: Steve Harris now claims, (on the Cold Filter cryonics forum), that the dose is 200mg, rather than the 20mg reported in at least one of Suspended Animation's case reports, but even 200mg is a rather insignificant dose. Propofol stays in the central nervous system (CNS) for only a matter of minutes, after which it rapidly moves into the peripheral tissues.
In his apology, Harris claimed to have thought he had already apologized. The truth is, when I asked him to apologize at the time he posted the untrue statements, he responded with, "So sue me, baby." I find it impossible to believe he went from that remark to thinking he had issued an apology. Harris also claimed to be interested in knowing the truth, regarding the false statements he had made about me, on the Internet. I publicly invited him to contact me, privately, so I could provide him with the details without rehashing the events, in public, again. Since he didn't follow up, I was left wondering if his apology was insincere, and issued only with the goal of cleaning up his tarnished public image. Furthermore, since the apology, I've had to ask myself if Steve Harris is someone I would want to be congenial with, and the unequivocal answer to that is "No."
In his book, "Mothermelters," former Riverside County Coroner's Investigator Alan Kunzman wrote that Steve Harris admitted to knowing a woman, whose death certificate he signed, had died in an industrial park, though the death certificate falsely indicated she died at a residence. Why would he do sign such a document, if he was aware of the inaccuracy?
Steve Harris, and members of his family, have financially benefitted for many years, for conducting dog experiments, which I find to be highly questionable. According to LEF's form 990's, in the years 2008 and 2007, alone, Critical Care Research received nearly two million dollars, ($1,824,500), in funding, from LEF. When I was working at Suspended Animation, I was told the four fulltime employees of CCR were Harris, his wife, his mother-in-law and her significant other. We don't know who the employees currently are, (though I think it's probably safe to assume nothing much has changed), or much about what goes on at CCR. Like their sister LEF-funded organization, Suspended Animation, they are quite secretive.
Steve Harris endorses physicians, such as himself, being allowed to write prescriptions for medications to be transported and administered by cryonics personnel, (including laymen, with no medical credentials, or experience), who would not be allowed to have access to, transport, or administer these medications, in a conventional medical setting. He gets paid for acting as a "consultant," for these inexperienced persons, but does not accept responsibility for their activities. When I remarked on him not advising a cryonics team to give a maintainence dose of a certain medication, he said he would have done so, "if they had asked." He knows, as well as I do, that those people did not know to ask about any of the medications they were administering.
When I criticized CCR's sister organization, Suspended Animation, of Boynton Beach, FL, (also funded by Life Extension Foundation), Steve Harris responded by posting numerous blatant lies about me, (someone he did not know), on the Internet. A responsible physician might have written, "I have concerns about Ms. Maxim's statements, because I've heard some disturbing stories about her," but Harris wrote, I did and didn't do certain things, while working at Suspended Animation, as fact, when he had no firsthand knowledge of what I did, or didn't do, at SA, and everything he wrote was a lie. Why would he do such a foolish thing? In order to fulfill his benefactor's "loyalty" requirement?
Recently, when I questioned cryonics organizations allowing laymen to have free access to, transport, and administer the drug propofol, Steve Harris, along with SA employee Mathew Sullivan, and "FD" an anonymous poster on the Cold Filter cryonics forum, argued that the 20mg* of propofol in question was necessary so Alcor and/or SA could administer CPR to patients who had just died, without causing them pain, or waking them up. Nonsense. Propofol has an extremely short duration of action, (minutes), and a conservative dosing of propofol, for a 70kg (154lb) man, for the purposes of maintaining unconsciousness would be 140mg for induction, followed by 7mg per min (420mg per hour). https://online.epocrates.com/u/1011979/Diprivan/Adult+Dosing
As for Harris' claim that cryonics organizations were "ahead" of conventional medicine, in recognizing that persons being subjected to CPR might experience pain, I'm going to remind him the people receiving cryonics services are supposed to be dead, and therefore, should not perceive pain. I'm also still waiting for him, or anyone else, to provide evidence of civil lawsuits that have resulted from patient awareness and pain, during the administration of CPR.
So, why is Steve Harris willing to endorse writing prescriptions for laymen to carry and administer 20mg* of propofol? I don't believe responsible physicians would endorse such activity. Was including propofol in cryonics medications protocol designed to make the public think the people carrying this, and other prescription medications, are medical professionals? Does it make them feel like they are medical professionals? Does it offer Steve Harris a greater degree of job security? Is it really a good idea for cryonics organization to be using this drug, in light of past accusations of hastening the deaths of patients?
In my opinion, Steve Harris MD is a physician who has acted irresponsibly, unprofessionally, and/or unethically, on at least several occasions. I seriously doubt his apology was sincere, and therefore, have no reason to accept it.
*Note: Steve Harris now claims, (on the Cold Filter cryonics forum), that the dose is 200mg, rather than the 20mg reported in at least one of Suspended Animation's case reports, but even 200mg is a rather insignificant dose. Propofol stays in the central nervous system (CNS) for only a matter of minutes, after which it rapidly moves into the peripheral tissues.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
More Remarks from Alcor's Attorneys
Now we have Alcor/LEF superstar attorney, Clifford Wolff, making remarks I find questionable:
"Wolff said that even though the company's preferred preservation techniques were not followed in the hours after Robbins death, the company's scientists have said cryopreservation is still possible."
"She's been on dry ice at a super-cooled temperature, which allows for cryopreservation," (Clifford Wolff) said. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/grandmothers-frozen-head-grabs-colorado-court/story?id=9911768&page=3
If you use the traditional definition of "cryopreservation," it means to preserve something by cooling to sub-zero temperatures, and implies little-to-nothing, regarding viability. I could have cryopreserved the rotten banana I threw out a few minutes ago, but I doubt I would want to eat it in the future, any more than I did this morning. I could cryopreserve the bloated racoon I saw, in the middle of the street, yesterday, but since it's been there for more than a week, I don't think it will be waking up again, even given the benefit of future nanotech.
Whether Alcor is really concerned with fulfilling Ms. Robbins' wishes, or just trying to prove a point and collect $50K, I think they are making a HUGE mistake. While a few hundred, or even a few thousand, people interested in cryopreservation may find Alcor's efforts "heroic," most people are going to view them as a bunch of opportunistic ghouls. Is this one person, (who didn't move closer to Alcor, when she knew she was dying and Alcor suggested she do so, and didn't take steps to make sure her family did not interfere, and perhaps truly did change her mind at the last minute, (just as Timothy Leary did)), really worth the bad publicity involved? Alcor seems to be on a collision course with regulation, or extinction.
I also tend to think the use of the term "super-cooled," in Wolff's remarks, may be misleading.
Definition of "super-cooling:" lowering the temperature of a liquid, or gas, below the freezing temperature, without it becoming a solid
http://www.answers.com/topic/supercooling
"Wolff said that even though the company's preferred preservation techniques were not followed in the hours after Robbins death, the company's scientists have said cryopreservation is still possible."
"She's been on dry ice at a super-cooled temperature, which allows for cryopreservation," (Clifford Wolff) said. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/grandmothers-frozen-head-grabs-colorado-court/story?id=9911768&page=3
If you use the traditional definition of "cryopreservation," it means to preserve something by cooling to sub-zero temperatures, and implies little-to-nothing, regarding viability. I could have cryopreserved the rotten banana I threw out a few minutes ago, but I doubt I would want to eat it in the future, any more than I did this morning. I could cryopreserve the bloated racoon I saw, in the middle of the street, yesterday, but since it's been there for more than a week, I don't think it will be waking up again, even given the benefit of future nanotech.
Whether Alcor is really concerned with fulfilling Ms. Robbins' wishes, or just trying to prove a point and collect $50K, I think they are making a HUGE mistake. While a few hundred, or even a few thousand, people interested in cryopreservation may find Alcor's efforts "heroic," most people are going to view them as a bunch of opportunistic ghouls. Is this one person, (who didn't move closer to Alcor, when she knew she was dying and Alcor suggested she do so, and didn't take steps to make sure her family did not interfere, and perhaps truly did change her mind at the last minute, (just as Timothy Leary did)), really worth the bad publicity involved? Alcor seems to be on a collision course with regulation, or extinction.
I also tend to think the use of the term "super-cooled," in Wolff's remarks, may be misleading.
Definition of "super-cooling:" lowering the temperature of a liquid, or gas, below the freezing temperature, without it becoming a solid
http://www.answers.com/topic/supercooling
Monday, February 22, 2010
Brian Wowk's Testimony - Truth, or Rhetoric?
Recently, I read Brain Wowk's testimony, on behalf of Alcor, for the Arizona court. I can't seem to find that document, at the moment, but I'm certain I can regurgitate one statement Dr. Wowk made, that stuck in my mind. Though it won't be verbatim, it will be close enough that no one will be able to claim I twisted it. Essentially, he described the Johnson/Baldyga book as "400 pages of lies designed to disparage Alcor."
Does Dr. Wowk, of 21st Century Medicine (21CM) really believe what he told the judge, or was it rhetoric? It certainly appears a large percentage of the book is based on audiotapes Johnson made, while working at Alcor. I think it's safe to assume, (judging by the battle Johnson, Baldyga and their publisher have been putting up), that they can support the majority of the contents of the book, with those audiotapes. If Dr. Wowk thinks the book is filled with "lies," he should probably take that up with his colleagues and/or former colleagues, (people such as Hixon, Hovey, and Platt), since that is where Johnson seems to have obtained most of his information.
Dr. Wowk did get one thing right...
The book was intended to disparage and discredit Alcor, probably with good reason.
In my opinion, the people who defend activities most people will find to be indefensible, with statements that don't seem to be quite accurate, are further damaging Alcor's credibility , as well as risking their own professional reputations. If the judge listens to the tapes, (and rumor, on Cryonet, indicates more are to be released, soon), and he hears Alcor personnel verifying the contents of Johnson's book, what will he think of Dr. Wowk's testimony? I suppose it is possible Alcor is hoping to win on the technicality that Johnson signed some sort of mediated settlement, (though he never signed the formal agreement, nor accepted the payment that was included), before they actually have to wage a battle based on the contents of the book.
Does Dr. Wowk, of 21st Century Medicine (21CM) really believe what he told the judge, or was it rhetoric? It certainly appears a large percentage of the book is based on audiotapes Johnson made, while working at Alcor. I think it's safe to assume, (judging by the battle Johnson, Baldyga and their publisher have been putting up), that they can support the majority of the contents of the book, with those audiotapes. If Dr. Wowk thinks the book is filled with "lies," he should probably take that up with his colleagues and/or former colleagues, (people such as Hixon, Hovey, and Platt), since that is where Johnson seems to have obtained most of his information.
Dr. Wowk did get one thing right...
The book was intended to disparage and discredit Alcor, probably with good reason.
In my opinion, the people who defend activities most people will find to be indefensible, with statements that don't seem to be quite accurate, are further damaging Alcor's credibility , as well as risking their own professional reputations. If the judge listens to the tapes, (and rumor, on Cryonet, indicates more are to be released, soon), and he hears Alcor personnel verifying the contents of Johnson's book, what will he think of Dr. Wowk's testimony? I suppose it is possible Alcor is hoping to win on the technicality that Johnson signed some sort of mediated settlement, (though he never signed the formal agreement, nor accepted the payment that was included), before they actually have to wage a battle based on the contents of the book.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Is Alcor's Attorney Claiming they are Practicing Medicine?
"Alcor is not a cult and it's not a fly-by-night operation. It's a science-based medical organization," Bentley said." (Eric Bentley, an attorney for Alcor)
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14440503?source=ARK_news
Is Mr. Bentley aware that the majority of people who have performed Alcor's procedures, over the last 30+ years, have been lacking medical credentials? Once he is, will he still want to call them a "medical organization"? Is he implying their personnel have been performing legitimate "medical procedures"?
Any company that, for more than 30 years, frequently allows laymen, with little-to-no formal medical training, or experience, to dress up like doctors and chop off heads is not a "science-based medical organization," it's a joke.
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14440503?source=ARK_news
Is Mr. Bentley aware that the majority of people who have performed Alcor's procedures, over the last 30+ years, have been lacking medical credentials? Once he is, will he still want to call them a "medical organization"? Is he implying their personnel have been performing legitimate "medical procedures"?
Any company that, for more than 30 years, frequently allows laymen, with little-to-no formal medical training, or experience, to dress up like doctors and chop off heads is not a "science-based medical organization," it's a joke.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Alcor's "Trade Secrets" - Vitrification Solution Recipes
Alcor has been claiming "trade secrets," all over the place, in their lawsuits, against Larry Johnson, et. al. Personally, I don't think they have many, if any, trade secrets. Nothing in the book, (see link at top right of this blog), appeared to be a trade secret, and Johnson has no way of knowing what they have been doing during the last six-seven years, other than what Alcor has made available to the public. As for their "top secret" recipes, here's where anyone can find a few of those:
"Vitrification agents in cryonics: M22," an article by Aschwin de Wolf, on his "Depressed Metabolism" blog: http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2008/07/08/vitrification-agents-in-cryonics-m22/
Includes the recipe for "M22," as follows:
"Dimethyl sulfoxide 2.855 M
Formamide 2.855 M
Ethylene glycol 2.713 M
N-methylformamide 0.508 M
3-methoxy-1,2-propanediol 0.377 M
Polyvinyl pyrrolidone K12* 2.8% w/v
X-1000 ice blocker* 1% w/v
Z-1000 ice blocker* 2% w/v
Total Molarity 9.345 M"
(May be missing one "proprietary" ingredient, but I doubt Johnson knows what it is.)
Here's an old (1995) Mike Darwin/Federowicz Cryonet post, which contains a recipe for "MH2":
http://cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=4474
Here's the "competition," (Ben Best/Cryonics Institute), linking to the MH2 recipe in the Darwin/Federowicz post: http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/protocol.html
Scroll down and look for the links, under "IV. BLOOD WASHOUT & REPLACEMENT", and then click on the embedded links, where you see, "(For the formula of MHP-2 see Table II of CryoMsg 4474 or Table VII of CryoMsg 2874 — which also contains the formula for Viaspan in Table V.)"
Alcor has claimed they need to be protected from their "competitors," but that's ridiculous. Cryonics Institute is their only "competition," and I believe they share a lot of information. The president of CI, Ben Best, was at Alcor, about a year ago. They made him sign an NDA, so I assume they showed him some of their "secrets." Otherwise, why would he have had to sign an NDA, and what was the point of inviting their so-called "competition" for a show-and tell if they are concerned about the "competition," anyway?
Recently, Alcor had to post a $10,000 bond, in New York, in case the current restraining order turned out to be "wrongful and without sufficient cause." The restraining order, as I read it, only forbids Johnson from disclosing confidential information and/or trade secrets, which are not in his book. I would say it's extremely unlikely Johnson knows any of Alcor's "confidential information," or "trade secrets," and Dr. Brian Wowk seems to agree with me, in his December 8, 2009 affidvit, which states, "Mr. Johnson has not been employed at Alcor for 6 years, and Mr. Johnson does not know how Alcor currently operates its business..." https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/DocumentDisplayServlet?documentId=hU2t/NCvOlD3RneOfm44gA==&system=prod
"Vitrification agents in cryonics: M22," an article by Aschwin de Wolf, on his "Depressed Metabolism" blog: http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2008/07/08/vitrification-agents-in-cryonics-m22/
Includes the recipe for "M22," as follows:
"Dimethyl sulfoxide 2.855 M
Formamide 2.855 M
Ethylene glycol 2.713 M
N-methylformamide 0.508 M
3-methoxy-1,2-propanediol 0.377 M
Polyvinyl pyrrolidone K12* 2.8% w/v
X-1000 ice blocker* 1% w/v
Z-1000 ice blocker* 2% w/v
Total Molarity 9.345 M"
(May be missing one "proprietary" ingredient, but I doubt Johnson knows what it is.)
Here's an old (1995) Mike Darwin/Federowicz Cryonet post, which contains a recipe for "MH2":
http://cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=4474
Here's the "competition," (Ben Best/Cryonics Institute), linking to the MH2 recipe in the Darwin/Federowicz post: http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/protocol.html
Scroll down and look for the links, under "IV. BLOOD WASHOUT & REPLACEMENT", and then click on the embedded links, where you see, "(For the formula of MHP-2 see Table II of CryoMsg 4474 or Table VII of CryoMsg 2874 — which also contains the formula for Viaspan in Table V.)"
Alcor has claimed they need to be protected from their "competitors," but that's ridiculous. Cryonics Institute is their only "competition," and I believe they share a lot of information. The president of CI, Ben Best, was at Alcor, about a year ago. They made him sign an NDA, so I assume they showed him some of their "secrets." Otherwise, why would he have had to sign an NDA, and what was the point of inviting their so-called "competition" for a show-and tell if they are concerned about the "competition," anyway?
Recently, Alcor had to post a $10,000 bond, in New York, in case the current restraining order turned out to be "wrongful and without sufficient cause." The restraining order, as I read it, only forbids Johnson from disclosing confidential information and/or trade secrets, which are not in his book. I would say it's extremely unlikely Johnson knows any of Alcor's "confidential information," or "trade secrets," and Dr. Brian Wowk seems to agree with me, in his December 8, 2009 affidvit, which states, "Mr. Johnson has not been employed at Alcor for 6 years, and Mr. Johnson does not know how Alcor currently operates its business..." https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/DocumentDisplayServlet?documentId=hU2t/NCvOlD3RneOfm44gA==&system=prod
It looks like that restraining order is, most likely, "without sufficient cause."
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
NY Court Documents
Recently, Mathew Sullivan of Suspended Animation, in Boynton Beach, Florida, and the anonymous "FD," who frequently participates on the "Cold Filter" cryonics forum, criticized me for not posting recent information regarding the Alcor vs. Johnson/Baldyga/Vanguard Press lawsuits. The truth is, I had not even read the documents, since they had yet to be posted on the Internet court site I monitor. During the course of three days, (February 2-4), four documents containing a total of 103 pages were posted. On February 6, before I was even aware of the documents, FD and Mathew took to pretending I was not commenting on them, because I didn't like the contents. People in cryonics are good at pretending.
One of the documents they are gloating over contains the testimony of Brian Wowk, which is incomplete, in that Johnson's attorneys have yet to cross-examine him. It appears they did not cross-examine him, because they were unaware he was going to testify that day, and they didn't even have an opportunity to depose him, beforehand. If they do get around to cross-examining him, in the future, as the judge suggested, there are many statements they should pay attention to. I find the documents, (like many legal documents), to be ridiculously long and boring, so I am not going to spend all day pouring over them, but there were a couple of things that caught my eye, as I was scrolling through them. Here is just one example:
Alcor's attorney: "Is it a true statement that Ted Williams' head was used for batting practice at the Alcor facility?
Dr. Wulk (sic): "No, that's absolutely false. I personally know the individual who was alleged to have done that, Hugh Hixson (sic). He's a scientist like myself who takes the field of cryonics very seriously. He is incapable of such an act, as am I."
Now, we all know the "batting practice" remark was a sensationalistic metaphor used to describe Hixon attempting to dislodge a tuna can that had been frozen to Mr. Williams' head. We all know Johnson's claim is that Hixon was attempting to dislodge the tuna can with a wrench, and accidentally struck Mr. Williams' head. We all know Johnson didn't really mean to give anyone the impression that the Alcor personnel was having a real "batting practice" with Mr. Williams' head. In fact, I believe it was the media, not Larry Johnson, who came up with the "batting practice" remark. I know it, and I can't help but believe Alcor and Dr. Wowk know it, since anyone of reasonable intelligence who has read the book and seen the interviews could figure it out. To make his testimony even more laughable, Dr. Wowk complained about Johnson presenting things "out of context," in a magazine article. Isn't that exactly what Alcor's attorneys and Dr. Wowk were doing, in a court of law, when they discussed the media's "batting practice" comments?
One of the documents they are gloating over contains the testimony of Brian Wowk, which is incomplete, in that Johnson's attorneys have yet to cross-examine him. It appears they did not cross-examine him, because they were unaware he was going to testify that day, and they didn't even have an opportunity to depose him, beforehand. If they do get around to cross-examining him, in the future, as the judge suggested, there are many statements they should pay attention to. I find the documents, (like many legal documents), to be ridiculously long and boring, so I am not going to spend all day pouring over them, but there were a couple of things that caught my eye, as I was scrolling through them. Here is just one example:
Alcor's attorney: "Is it a true statement that Ted Williams' head was used for batting practice at the Alcor facility?
Dr. Wulk (sic): "No, that's absolutely false. I personally know the individual who was alleged to have done that, Hugh Hixson (sic). He's a scientist like myself who takes the field of cryonics very seriously. He is incapable of such an act, as am I."
Now, we all know the "batting practice" remark was a sensationalistic metaphor used to describe Hixon attempting to dislodge a tuna can that had been frozen to Mr. Williams' head. We all know Johnson's claim is that Hixon was attempting to dislodge the tuna can with a wrench, and accidentally struck Mr. Williams' head. We all know Johnson didn't really mean to give anyone the impression that the Alcor personnel was having a real "batting practice" with Mr. Williams' head. In fact, I believe it was the media, not Larry Johnson, who came up with the "batting practice" remark. I know it, and I can't help but believe Alcor and Dr. Wowk know it, since anyone of reasonable intelligence who has read the book and seen the interviews could figure it out. To make his testimony even more laughable, Dr. Wowk complained about Johnson presenting things "out of context," in a magazine article. Isn't that exactly what Alcor's attorneys and Dr. Wowk were doing, in a court of law, when they discussed the media's "batting practice" comments?
Dr. Wowk put forth that Johnson's book is "...400 pages of privacy violation, disparagement and defamation that presents false and misleading information in a manner constructed to be as harmful to Alcor as possible."
I'll have to disagree with that. A lot of those 400 pages contain the transcripts of tapes of Alcor's own staff members, (including the COO, the vice president, and an Alcor senior board member), describing Alcor allegedly engaging in unethical and illegal activities. Was that information false? I doubt it, but if it is, Dr. Wowk should take it up with his esteemed colleagues, such as Hixon, Platt and Hovey.
Are the case notes of the cryopreservation of Ted Williams a "privacy violation"? Probably, but let's put that in context. One of Alcor's own personnel, at the time, complained about many people, who had no reason for even being there, milling about, snapping their photos with Mr. Williams' body, (or maybe just the head). Maybe Dr. Wowk could ask former Alcor COO, Charles Platt, about his email to Larry Johnson, in which he (Platt) claims to have photos of the Ted Williams case stored in a safe deposit box.
If I were Johnson's attorney, I would definitely cross-examine Wowk. I would read the excerpt of the book, in which Johnson clearly indicates Hixon was attempting to dislodge the tuna can, and then I would ask Dr. Wowk if it was Mr. Johnson, or the media, who used the term "batting practice." I would also ask Dr. Wowk why his fellow scientist, Hugh Hixon, would make a statement that a drug was used "To kill (Alcor patients)," or make jokes about one of his co-workers expediting the death of a patient, so the Alcor team could "beat the traffic." Then I would play every tape Johnson has of Hixon, and ask Dr. Wowk if he could possibly explain why his upstanding colleague would make such remarks. I mean, if Hixon takes the "field of cryonics (so) very seriously," as Dr. Wowk claims, then the court should probably assume the statements he made about drugs being used to kill people during cryonics cases should be taken very seriously, should it not? I would make it clear, to the judge, that I thought Alcor's attorneys and witnesses were misrepresenting some of the contents of Johnson's book.
If I were to read the entire document, I could probably go on, all day, about how I think Alcor is being deceptive, (because that IS what I think). And, if I had a stake in Johnson's case, (as Mathew and FD seem to think I do), I would rush to my computer each morning to tear apart those documents line-by-line, and post them on my blog, knowing at least one of Johnson's attorneys reads my posts. Johnson's NY attorneys seem really sharp, but I'm not so sure about his Arizona attorneys, and it seems the NY judge may rule, based on what the Arizona courts rule. Regardless, that's Johnson's problem, not mine. TWrelated is right, not enough people really care about the outcome of the Johnson case, including me, since I expect a decision, in either direction, will be rather anti-climactic. While Johnson's sensationalistic book got the world's attention, for 15 minutes, I believe it was only a catalyst for a few other reactions that will forever change the face of cryonics, (hopefully, in a positive way).
Now, would FD and Mathew really like for me to keep reviewing the blasted legal documents, or would they be okay with them if I went back to ignoring most of them, as I have been doing, for many weeks, now? I really have better things to do.
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